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Attorney Jeff Strange stands in a conference room at his office Tuesday, July 28, 2020 in Sugar Land. The Fort Bend task force’s record of near-exclusive minority traffic stops first came to the attention of Strange, a Sugar Land defense attorney, who noticed several of his clients had been stopped and searched by a certain. He asked the Fort Bend Sheriff’s Office, which oversees the narcotics task force, for each officer’s traffic stop racial profiling statistics.
Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer
Citing statistics highlighted in a Chronicle investigation that strongly suggested a Houston-area drug task force conducted traffic stops based on the drivers’ race, one of the men arrested by the unit is now arguing the evidence in his case should be thrown out because the officers engaged in illegal racial profiling. The outcome could influence dozens of other pending cases brought by the task force.
It also will force officials to make a difficult legal determination of an individual officer’s performance. Racial profiling is legally prohibited but undefined by the law. While the federal government identifies police departments that improperly target minorities, civil rights attorneys said it is exceedingly rare for judges to toss out a case or cases because of one police officer’s apparent racially biased behavior.
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