Racial Profiling

Baltimore, MD: (Apr-02-08) A federal civil lawsuit was filed against the state of Maryland in 1998, by civil rights attorneys representing 14 African American motorists, alleging that state troopers unfairly harassed them because they were racial minorities. Court records show that of the 14 who sued, only six plaintiffs remain as eight had dropped out of the suit. Assistant Attorney General David Moore stated that the state police as an agency was dropped as a defendant in fall 2006 on summary judgment, leaving six state troopers as defendants.

Sources stated that the two sides had reached a settlement, in which the state of Maryland agreed to pay $400,000 to resolve the long-running racial profiling lawsuit. Apart from the monetary payout of $300,000, which will be split among the six, the state has also agreed to pay up to $100,000 to hire a consultant to assess whether the agency is practicing policy changes aimed at ending racial profiling. The settlement agreement stated that the policy changes will include collecting detailed information on the race of motorists who are stopped and providing those motorists with pamphlets explaining how to file a complaint about a stop. The police department did not admit any wrongdoing in the case [WASHINGTON POST: $400,000 SETTLEMENT REACHED IN DECADE OLD RACIAL PROFILING SUIT]

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Published on Apr-3-08