From [HERE] A mayor-appointed committee will review ways to better diversify Saginaw’s police force. The announcement came during today’s Saginaw City Council which featured community leaders — elected or otherwise — discussing how the police shooting of Milton S. Hall on July 1 should put in focus the Saginaw police force’s lack of diversity and the relevancy of a 77-year-old policy governing public safety hiring.

About 75 residents packed Saginaw City Hall during today’s City Council meeting. A majority of the crowd came to hear the council talk about the death of Hall, a 49-year-old black homeless man police report they killed when he was acting aggressively with a knife. Witnesses tell a different story. 

Mechelle Evans was at the Riverview Plaza on Sunday with her kids. Her son walked out a door before her and told her there were police outside. When she walked out, Evans said she saw several Saginaw Police officers and a man standing in front of them. "When I came out their guns were drawn. The dogs were out and the man was standing right by the wooded plant stand area in the front of the parking lot. "They were yelling 'get down, drop your weapon!' There was so much commotion," she said. Evans froze. Her kids stood still. She said the man was frozen, too."The man was not moving. He was just standing there looking. I think he was scared of the dogs and the yelling," she said.  Evans said she didn't witness the man go after police. "They opened fire and unloaded on him," she said. "When they opened fire it sounded like a bomb went off. We ran back in the store and it had to be maybe 20 or 30 shots, well at least that is what it sounded like."