Miami-area police agency charged with racial profiling

Melanie Eversley | USA TODAY

A young Florida black man has been stopped and questioned by police in Miami Gardens 258 times in four years, searched more than 100 times and arrested 56 times, the Miami Herald is reporting.

But out of all that activity, the most serious conviction for Earl Sampson, 28, has been possession of marijuana, according to the news organization.

Sixty-two times, Miami Gardens police have arrested Sampson for trespassing at the 207 Quickstop -- that's the convenience store where he works as a clerk, the Herald reports.

Owner Alex Saleh, 26, says he has been looking for answers for the period of more than a year in which he's watched Sampson, other 207 Quickstop employees and customers stopped and frisked day after day by Miami Gardens police. Most of those stopped, including Sampson, are poor and black, Saleh says. Some have been stopped three times in the same day, Saleh told the Herald.

To help him figure out what was going on, Saleh installed 15 video cameras in his store in June 2012. What the cameras produced raise troubling questions about the conduct of Miami Gardens police, the Herald reports.

The videos show cops stopping people, aggressively searching them, arresting them for trespassing in places where their presence presents no violation, searching Saleh's business without warrants or permission and using what appears to be excessive force on people who are not resisting arrest.

"There is just no justifying this kind of behavior," police policy consultant Chuck Drago told the Herald. "Nobody can justify overstepping the constitution to fight crime."

Neither Miami Gardens Police Chief Matthew Boyd nor City Manager Cameron Benson responded to repeated phone messages and emails requesting comment, the Herald reports.

Saleh and his lawyer, Steve Lopez, are preparing a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming that the police department routinely directed officers to engage in racial profiling and illegal stops and searches, the Herald reports.

Miami Gardens has struggled with gang violence and drug-related crime. Murders have more than doubled in recent years, state crime figures show. It is the third largest city in Miami-Dade, with 109,000 residents. The population is predominantly black and many of the members of the police department are white and Hispanic, according to the Herald.