In 1996, Army National Guard Lt. William Berry says he found himself insulted and degraded when police stopped and searched his car ? leaving his belongings in disarray ? along Interstate 95 for no other reason than his race.
“I hadn?t done anything wrong,” says Berry, who is black. “I wasn?t speeding or anything.”
Twelve years later, Berry says he feels “wonderful” the Maryland State Police have agreed to pay out more than $400,000 to settle a decade-old suit filed by the NAACP, ACLU and several angry motorists alleging racial profiling of drivers along I-95.
More importantly, he says, the agency agreed to have an independent monitor make sure state police are not engaging in racial profiling.
“I think it?s a good gesture on their behalf,” he said.
The settlement was approved by the state?s Board of Public Works on Wednesday.
State police referred calls to Maryland attorney general spokeswoman Raquel Guillory, who said the state was “pleased to resolve this long-standing suit in a fair settlement for both sides.”
American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Deborah Jeon said the settlement ends “active litigation” and “adversarial arguments” between the civil rights organizations and the police.
“Our contention has always been that once a motorist was stopped, there was a problem where African-American motorists were detained and searched more frequently than white motorists,” Jeon said. “That?s where we felt race became an issue in their encounters with police.”
About $300,000 of the settlement will go to the motorists and their legal costs, while about $100,000 will go to hiring the independent monitor.
Berry was stopped in Cecil County on May 2, 1996, and given no reason for the stop, according to the ACLU. He was ordered out of the car, and police questioned him about whether he was carrying drugs or a weapon and threatened him with arrest after he refused to consent to a search, Berry said.
The police searched his car anyway and found nothing illegal, detaining Berry for about an hour, the ACLU said.
“You worry about being pulled over for no reason,” Berry said. “That goes through your mind every time you?re on the road.”
Robert Wilkins, a lawyer, first filed the lawsuit with members of his family in 1993 in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, alleging they were the victims of racial profiling.
Wilkins and the state police resolved some of their differences after the agency agreed, among other things, to compile quarterly reports containing detailed information of complaints alleging racial profiling.
But the ACLU and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed a second suit alleging the state police were not following through on those agreements.
