New allegations of racial profiling by San Jose cops

Source: San Jose Mercury News

SAN JOSE -- The police department here is facing new allegations of racial profiling, this time in a federal lawsuit filed by a black couple who claim that an officer pulled a gun on them and their young children for no reason as they pulled up in front of their Almaden Valley home.

The suit filed by Emmanuel Stephens and his wife, Jasmine Whitley ... follows an analysis by this newspaper of traffic-stop data collected by police last year that found significant racial disparities in the stops.

... The couple allege that Officer Alexander Keller followed Stephens as he drove home from picking up his 7-year-old daughter from school, then jumped out of his patrol car with his gun drawn when they arrived. According to the lawsuit, Keller then handcuffed Stephens and put him in the back of his patrol car, and threatened their 14-year-old, who emerged from the house, with Juvenile Hall if she went back in the house to get a cell phone to record the incident.

They also claim officers searched the car without probable cause, and cited Whitley for possession of a small container of medical marijuana, even though she showed him proof she had a prescription. An officer who later arrived told the family that they had gotten a call about a "suspicious black man with a purple backpack," but Stephens did not have such a backpack and Keller could not have seen it, even if he did so from his patrol car, the suit said.

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_28556332/new-allegations-racial-profiling-by-san-jose-cops