All White Jury: St. Joe police didn't target teens
It took an all-white jury of six women and two men about seven hours to decide that four St. Joseph police officers and the city of St. Joseph did not racially profile three black teens when they were detained and arrested in the summer of 2000. Thursday's verdict in a federal civil suit, filed in 2002 on behalf of Devin Mitchell, Cody Mitchell and Preston Culpepper, came after an eight-day trial in District Court for the Western District of Michigan in Kalamazoo. The teens had claimed that St. Joseph police officers violated their 14th Amendment right of equal protection by engaging in selective prosecution. The suit also claimed that police violated the teens' Fourth Amendment protection against false arrest and imprisonment by arresting them without probable cause. The suit also claimed that the city of St. Joseph failed to properly train officers and that the city had a policy or custom of racial profiling. During the trial, the plaintiffs' attorney Roosevelt Thomas said the police were following the teens so closely that the mother of one of youths could follow their actions on a police scanner.
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