A controversial member of the Warren City Council was arrested on misdemeanor charges after he refused to wear a face mask while inside of the TCF Center in Detroit.
Eddie Kabacinski, who represents District 5 in southwest Warren, was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon after he repeatedly refused Detroit police officers’ orders to put a mask in the center. He was handcuffed and taken to a precinct to be processed.
“The councilman was taken into custody for trespassing at the TCF,” Rudy Harper, a 2nd deputy chief of media relations for the department, said in an email Thursday. “We have no further information to provide at this time.”
Kabacinski’s voice mail on his cellphone was full Thursday. He did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
It appears the councilman brought along a video photographer to document the encounter.
In a 16-minute videotape of the incident posted on YouTube by Michael Bodell Films, Kabacinski could be heard saying he planned to attend a public hearing conducted by the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission at the TCF Center, formerly Cobo Hall.
Wearing blues jeans with a red sweatshirt that read “Values Matter” on the front, Kabacinski is seen entering TCF and immediately being stopped by three Detroit officers. They repeatedly tell him a mask has to be worn inside as part of the center is also being used as a vaccination clinic.
Kabacinski, 48, a former military police officer, identifies himself as a Warren councilmember and retired law enforcer. He tells the officers “there is no law, no mandate, no rule,” requiring a mask, and states the officers are violating Michigan’s Open Meetings Act by blocking his path in.
When informed he will be arrested for trespassing, Kabacinski says “I’m not wearing a mask.” He said the officers are “brainwashed” and that he has natural immunity to COVID-19.
As the officers place him handcuffs, Kabacinski threatens to sue them and shouts: “Who do you think you are, the gestapo?”
City Council President Pat Green said he found the incident “disturbing,” considering it was at least the third time Kabacinski had been arrested since he was elected to office in 2019.
“He tells the officers, ‘don’t arrest me, I’m an elected official,’ but he doesn’t represent the Warren City Council,” Green said. “We act as a body. For him to identify himself as a councilmember, it looks like he was trying to protect himself.”
The council president went on to say there is no disciplinary action council can take against Kabacinski other than perhaps an ethics violation.
In October 2020, the embattled councilman was arrested for impersonating a police officer in Eastpointe after he was accused to handcuffing a woman who placed Black Lives Matter stickers on then-President Donald Trump’s campaign signs.
Kabacinski was also arrested in August at a Trump rally in the area of Hall and Schoenherr roads in Utica for selling Donald Trump merchandise without a permit,
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