Detroit City Council member wants police chief to declare closure of Cinco de Mayo celebration

(CBS DETROIT) — A Detroit City Council member is calling on the city’s police chief to attend Tuesday’s meeting to discuss closing Sunday’s Cinco de Mayo celebrations.

This came after Detroit Police Chief James White addressed the situation during a press conference on Monday, saying the department had not stopped the celebrations.

White said some stores are “on pause” due to overcrowding, but they have not closed any stores.

“We didn’t close Cinco de Mayo,” White said. “Thousands of people attended the event and enjoyed the event. There have been a number of cases where overcrowding has posed a safety risk. Some businesses have had double or triple overcrowding, which obviously creates a number of problems for us.”

Detroit City Council member Mary Waters “wants to know whether the early militaristic nature of Cinco de Mayo activities was a reflection of racist, xenophobic double standards that were not used in crowd control in the NFL Draft,” according to a press release .

Waters said she wanted White to attend Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

“I am calling on Detroit Police Chief White to appear before the Detroit City Council to discuss successful crowd control related to NFL Draft activities with 275,000 participants daily and DPD’s apparent inability to respond during Cinco de Mayo- Activities in southwest Detroit this weekend will accommodate much smaller crowds,” Waters said.

According to Detroit police, the eight people were arrested, ticketed and released Sunday evening.