A Black Wisconsin Man claims he was racially profiled and wrongfully detained by a Wisconsin police officer while riding in a car with his grandmother and friend, who were white.
Akil K. Carter, his grandmother Paulette H. Barr, and family friend Sandra K. Adams filed a federal civil rights lawsuit for the 2018 ordeal. The case reached the trial stage this week.
Carter was with Barr and Adams in a Lexus on their way to lunch on Sept. 2, 2018, when Officer Patrick Kaine pulled them over, suspecting the Black male was not part of the party.
Attorney for plaintiffs Joy Bertrand told the court the “foundation of this case is freedom” and that citizens are protected by law from “unreasonable seizure.” Police must have reasonable suspicion that a crime is afoot,” and that in this case, based on the facts, there were none.
The fate of the discrimination case is in the hands of an all-white jury of four women and three men. Named in the lawsuit are the city of Wauwatosa, Police Chief Barry Weber, Officers Patrick Kaine, Luke Vetter, Nicole Gabriel, Derek Dienhard, and John Does 1-3 and Jane Does 1-3, the Milwaukee Journal reports.
Bertrand told the jurors her then-18-year-old client’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated by officers in the city’s police department, WISN reported.
Kaine said he was told by an unknown Black third-party witness, who was driving “a blue Chevrolet with an African-American woman,” that “two African-American males had hijacked a blue Lexus.” The officer says he believed, at the time, Carter could have been one of the thugs allegedly carjacking the two women.
The complaint alleges the cop targeted Carter because he was Black and was with two older women, noting the three were traveling through the “racially segregated” Wauwatosa, a small town with a population of 82.4 percent white, 5.65 percent Black, and 4.14 percent Asians.
Within minutes of the stop, other officers “swarmed to…
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