Ohio - Hispanics claim racial profiling by officers

[stopracism]

Hispanics claim racial profiling by officers

Article published December 11, 2009
U.S. Border Patrol, 3 departments named
By Erica Blake
Blade Staff Writer

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs...57/0/FRONTPAGE

Three times in two months, Jose Calderon and Belinda Vega were stopped by a police officer and an immigration officer in Plymouth, Ohio, and their identities questioned - each time with their two young children present and each time with no ticket or citation given.

The stops, according to lawyers with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, were not a result of Mr. Calderon's driving but because of the color of his skin.

The couple was among 12 individuals and two organizations that filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Toledo Thursday alleging racial profiling practices by agents of the U.S. Border Patrol and three northwest Ohio police departments.

The lawsuit requests that the litigation be made into a class- action lawsuit and asks that the court order the federal agents as well as officers in the Ohio communities of Norwalk, Plymouth, and Attica to refrain from stopping Hispanics without probable cause.

The case was assigned to Judge Jack Zouhary.

"This affects hundreds if not thousands of people in northern Ohio," said Baldemar Velasquez, president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, one of the plaintiffs listed in the lawsuit. "Every Latino knows someone who has dealt with this issue. It impacts in some way 90 percent of the Hispanics in the U.S."
The examples of unwarranted stops listed in the complaint include a woman stopping for gas, a family driving down the road, and a woman walking her son to school.

All of the men, women, and children were residing in northern Ohio when they were detained and questioned about their immigration status. Both Mr. Heller and Mr. Velasquez declined to say how many of the 12 listed plaintiffs are considered illegal immigrants.

The 39-page lawsuit alleges 13 claims, including violations of the right against unreasonable searches and seizures and the prohibition of the deprivation of liberty without due process. The complaint also alleges a "conspiracy to violate Hispanics' rights to equal protection under the law."

"Under the Fourth Amendment these restraints [of liberty] must be justified by reasonable suspicion that the person seized has no right to be or remain in the United States," the complaint said. "These defendants have conspired to deprive Hispanics of the equal protection of the laws and have in furtherance of that conspiracy restrained and interrogated them because of their Hispanic appearance."

"We believe this has increased dramatically since the opening of the U.S. Border Patrol in Sandusky, Ohio," said Mark Heller, managing attorney for ABLE's Migrant Farmworker and Immigration Program. "We've seen that they are trolling through northern Ohio and are stopping Hispanics based solely on their Hispanic appearance."

Mr. Heller said that the groups are asking the court to create two classes as part of the litigation - one for those people targeted by agents of the border patrol and one for those who were stopped by officers in the three listed police departments.

Named in the lawsuit are Randy Gallegos, the chief patrol agent for the U.S. Border Patrol's Detroit Sector; Attica Police Chief Jeffrey Briggs; former Norwalk Police Chief Kevin Cashen, and Plymouth Police Chief Charles Doan. Also listed are several "John Does" representing the various departments' officers.

Norwalk is a city of about 16,500 in Huron County. The mayor and police chief of Norwalk could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Attica, located in southeastern Seneca County, has a population of about 950. Yesterday, Tom Burwell, a member of the Attica Community Improvement Corp., said that residents in the town appreciated the "vigilant law enforcement" provided by the local police department.

He said he was not aware of the lawsuit or the allegations of racial profiling.

Chief Briggs could not be reached for comment.

Also unavailable late yesterday was Chief Doan of the Plymouth police department. The village straddles the line between Huron and Richland counties and has a population of nearly 2,000.

The lawsuit comes about a month after Mr. Velasquez announced that FLOC had partnered with the nonprofit Campaign for Migrant Worker Justice, which is launching an immigration services program to provide assistance to individuals living in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan.

He said the purpose of the partnership is to help people to become in compliance with the law.

Mr. Velasquez said yesterday that he is concerned about the long-term impact that unwarranted stops will have on the Hispanic community, including the probability that Hispanics will not trust law enforcement enough to report crimes they have either experienced or witnessed.