When two city cops pulled over two sisters who made a midnight visit to Hudson Street, the cops did so because of the color of their skin — and because of a systemic failure to address racial profiling in the police department, a new federal suit charges.
The suit, filed in federal court Tuesday by Lashunda and Ronda Adkins, stems from charges that came from what they called a fishy traffic stop — charges that a prosecutor later decided not to pursue. The plaintiffs claim they were charged because of the color of their skin, as the result of the city and police union’s failure to properly train cops on how to avoid racial profiling.
The suit, filed by Attorney Michael Deem in U.S. District Court, names Mayor John DeStefano, city cops Jason Jemiola and Christopher Cacela, the local police union and its parent union, AFSCME Council 15, and the city of New Haven as defendants.
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“The City of New Haven will respond more fully at the appropriate time to this slapdash and meritless filing,” responded city Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden. “Nevertheless, when all is said and done, it will be abundantly clear that legitimate public safety concerns and not race were the basis for the stop underlying this lawsuit.”
The story in the suit begins at 12:20 a.m. Sept. 2, 2010. Lashunda Adkins and her sister, Ronda Adkins, of Beaver Hills, were in a car with a man named Albert Eaddy. Lashunda was behind the wheel.
Two city cops, Jason Jemiola and Christopher Cacela, saw Lashunda stop the car on Hudson Street in Dixwell. Someone got out of the car, got in again and proceeded. Cops pulled the car over on Crescent Street and charged Lashunda with parking in the middle of the one-way street and failure to drive in the right lane. They also charged her with a third, unnamed citation, based on information that “arose after the vehicle was stopped.”
Police spokesman Dave Hartman said the police report is not available because the case is under investigation.
As the case made its way through state court, Lashunda chipped away at the basis of the arrest — whether the cops had reasonable suspicion to pull her over.
Jemiola wrote in a police report that he and Cacela had “received numerous anonymous complaints from a known source” of drug activity at 34 Hudson.
However, according to the suit, Cacela testified in state court that he and Jemiola “knew they did not have reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle driven by Lashunda for suspected drug activity, but had agreed to stop the vehicle based on the parking and driving violations in hopes of finding something.”
Jemiola conceded in court that Lashunda’s driving did not violate state statutes, according to the suit. The way the car stopped did not constitute parking, the defense argued.
Attorney Deem concluded that Jemiola’s claim to have “received numerous anonymous complaints from a known source,” and the driving charges he came up with, were “pure fabrications, and mere attempts to cover up their misconduct of racial profiling as well as cover up the City of New Haven’s custom and practice of racial profiling.”
State prosecutors ended the case with a nolle, meaning they determined not to pursue the criminal charges.
The plaintiffs claim they were “intentionally discriminated against” on a basis of their race. The suit claims they suffered violation of their First, Fourth and 14th Amendment Constitutional rights, violation of the state constitution, “loss of physical liberty, emotional distress and fear of law enforcement personnel, and humiliation and embarrassment.”
The suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages.
Profiling Pattern
In the federal suit, attorney Deem argues that this wrongful arrest occurred because of a systematic failure on the part of the city and police union.
To make his case, Deem crunched numbers reported to the state African-American Affairs Commission and determined that police have a pattern of discriminating against black drivers. The city police department reported the numbers to the commission according to a long-ignored requirement by (PERF), recommended the city create such a system in the wake of a theft and bribery scandal in the city’s narcotics squad. PERF recommended the system as part of a 2007 report; however, amid concerns that the job evaluations would be made public, the police union and city declined to create such a system in the next police contract, which was signed on Nov. 17, 2009.
A job evaluation system would have given the police department the opportunity to train, supervise and discipline cops who engaged in racial profiling, Attorney Deem argued.
Without a job evaluation system, the city, police union and its parent union “created a policy, custom or practice of deliberate indifference to the training, supervision and disciplinary needs of its police officers.”
The omission of a performance evaluation system amounts to “highly unreasonable conduct, involving an extreme departure from ordinary care, in a situation where a high degree of danger was apparent, specifically the violation of constitutional rights of black drivers within the City of New Haven,” Deem charged.
Deem said the omission was especially unreasonable in light of the PERF report and the Alvin W. Penn Racial Profiling Prohibition Act, which “prohibits any law enforcement agency from stopping, detaining, or searching any motorist when the stop is motivated solely by considerations of the race, color, ethnicity, age, gender or sexual orientation.”
Reached Thursday, Louis Cavaliere, Jr., the incoming head of the city police union, AFSCME Council 15 Local 530, declined to address specifics of the traffic stop. He did say the union opposes an annual performance review.
“Why would we want a report card on our own officers?” Cavaliere said. “The officers have already been tested when they got on the job.” He said cops don’t need to be “tested time and time again.”
Jeffrey Matchett, executive director of Council 15, refrained from comment because, he said, he has not seen the lawsuit.
Attorney Deem has also filed suit on behalf of a passenger in the vehicle, Albert Eaddy, who ran from police after the car was pulled over and is claiming police brutality in connection to his subsequent arrest. Prior to the traffic stop, in May of 2010, Eaddy was convicted of third-degree assault, violation of a protective order and possession of narcotics.
Good on them for standing up for themselves!