The Department of Justice has reached an agreement with a sheriff’s office in Georgia to review its bias-free policing policies and procedures after deputies conducted a traffic stop on a bus full of Black HBCU lacrosse players last year under the pretense of a minor traffic violation.
In April 2022, deputies with the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office in south Georgia stopped a bus carrying female student-athletes from Delaware State University, one of the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities, located in Dover. They were on their way back to school after a game at the Jacksonville University campus in Florida.
Deputies initially said the bus was pulled over because the driver violated a state traffic law when he drove in one of the left lanes of the highway. State law states that buses and motor coaches must be driven in the two most right-hand lanes unless the vehicle needs to make a left turn or is moving to and from an HOV lane.
Related: ‘Reminiscent of the 1950s’: HBCU President Says South Carolina Law Enforcement Targeted a Group of Students from Her School During a Trip to a Conference
Reports show deputies began sweeping the bus for drugs with a K-9 officer. Someone on the bus recorded a video of one deputy telling the passengers they’d be conducting a drug search and requested that they tell him if they had any drugs or drug paraphernalia. They searched the young women’s luggage and belongings as well as the trunk of the bus.
No illegal substances or items were found.
County officials said the team was not being racially profiled and Liberty County Sheriff William Bowman initially told the public that “no personal items on the bus or person(s) were searched.”
Video taken by witnesses directly contradicted the statement as well as what could be seen on deputy body-camera footage. That footage shows one deputy running the license plate number for the bus. Another deputy is heard asking,…
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