MacIntosh, who was speaking when Clous retrieved the firearm, said she was shaken by the gesture. 'I've met multi-racial, Puerto Rican Proud Boys, and they informed me they also have gay proud boys,' he said. Hentschel said during the meeting he knew some members of the all-male organization, which says it defends 'western chauvinism.'

He told the Traverse City Record-Eagle he wanted to show support for gun rights and described the Proud Boys as 'decent guys.' He and Hentschel, the chairman, rejected calls for their resignation, and the commission deadlocked on whether to censure them.Ĭlous didn't returns calls and emails from The Associated Press. 20 incident involving Clous and his rifle vividly illustrated the region's cultural and political schism. 'We agree this is a wonderful place filled with wonderful people but it has a racism problem,' said Bird, who is Native American. A doctor of Iranian descent wrote in a local newspaper that a sheriff's deputy had knocked on his door after someone apparently saw him in his yard and reported a 'suspicious person.' A Native American pupil recently was the target of racist language and violent videos, said Holly T. Members of Northern Michigan E3, an anti-racism group, described uncomfortable encounters with law enforcement, bullying in schools, suspicious gazes in stores. 'It's just that they want things to be the way they used to,' he said.īut local residents of color say discrimination - often subtle, sometimes blatant - is commonplace in the region, which is well over 90% white. But he acknowledged the rapid pace of change had unsettled some. Janik, 63, who immigrated to the area from Poland as a child and endured taunts about his heritage, said Eckerle's racial slurs don't represent his rural county. 'We had minority people asking if it was safe for them to come up here.' 'I got calls about that from the East Coast to the West Coast,' Chet Janik, the county administrator, said in an interview. More: Leelanau County official uses racial slur to blame coronavirus on Detroiters More: Grand Traverse official who flashed gun during Zoom meeting asked to resign

He brandished it for the webcam, then set it aside. Capitol, commissioner Ron Clous - seated in a room with deer heads mounted on a wall - briefly disappeared from view and returned holding a rifle. Among them was Keli MacIntosh, who complained about remarks to the board last spring by members of the Proud Boys on designating the county four hours northwest of Detroit as a 'Second Amendment sanctuary.'Īs MacIntosh urged the chairman to disavow the far-right group that was a leading agitator during the Jan. As usual, citizens phoned in to sound off. 20 proceedings were livestreamed, with members joining from home because of the pandemic. Some 90 minutes into a routine meeting of the Grand Traverse County board, its agenda packed with mundane topics such as roads and libraries, came a surprising seven seconds that drew the kind of national attention no local government wants.

Michigan gay zoom room