Lucas G.R. stopped putting his license plate tabs on his car and then waited to see what happened. But nothing did. For a year, he took his car out five days a week across four or five different police jurisdictions in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
But being a white man who drove to work without valid plates, he never got pulled over. He held up those old tabs at a Grand Rapids city commission meeting on February 24. “I was never stopped or questioned once,” he told the room.
“But please do keep telling us there’s no racial or class bias in policing,” the Michigan man added.
The crowd and the mayor then heard Lucas connect the dots to the February 18 police killing of Daquain Johnson. The latter was a 32-year-old Black father of three who was stopped by Grand Rapids police while riding his bike. The officers believed he was carrying a handgun. As a result, one of the officers released a K-9 on Johnson as he ran, and the ordeal was captured on bodycam.
32-year-old father of three Da’Quain Johnson was shot on Feb. 18, 2026. Video shows him on the ground, restrained by a K9, when officers fired. He died the next day. Da’Quain’s killing is reportedly the 12th officer-involved shooting in Grand Rapids in four years. Patrick Lyoya… pic.twitter.com/SJLw8YLELL
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) March 20, 2026
The dog tore into him while he was on the ground, and then the Michigan police officer shot him three times. After this, Johnson died. Police, however, maintained that Johnson pointed a firearm at the officer before the shooting. Bodycam footage doesn’t clearly show that, but a loaded gun was reportedly found beneath his body after the incident.
Lucas is a self-described white guy from the South. “When I see a Black man running away having dogs sicked on them, it’s reminiscent of the plantations of the Old South,” he said. He then dropped a reference to “Delbert, release the hounds.”
His argument was simple: he, a white man, could ride plateless through multiple police jurisdictions without consequence. Yet Johnson, a Black man, got stopped for carrying a firearm, which is a constitutional right in Michigan.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signs into law that anyone who buys a gun will have to undergo a background check.
🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/3ljV1y805S
— 𝓙𝓲𝓶𝓶𝔂 𝓙 (@JimmyJ4thewin) April 14, 2023
Lucas then spoke to Mayor David LaGrand directly. Regarding the K-9 footage, LaGrand had said the night before, “If my dog did what I saw in that video, I’d put my dog down.” But Lucas wasn’t impressed and countered the mayor.
“You’re the one who promised to take on policing as an issue in your campaign. And then you went and made a video carrying water for exactly that,” he argued.
The Michigan man also mentioned a Facebook unfriending that suggested this wasn’t his first time at this particular podium. At the end, he asked the mayor if he was actually taking action because if not, Michigan won’t support his “gaslighting emptiness.”
