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Overview of the Rossano Gerald Racial Profiling Case
On Thursday, August 13, 1998, a decorated Army veteran and his twelve year old son crossed from Arkansas into Oklahoma on their way to a family reunion. While traveling on Interstate 40 West in his Nissan sports car, Sergeant First Class ("SFC") Rossano V. Gerald and his son Gregory were twice stopped and questioned by Oklahoma state troopers within a single 30 minute period.
The first stop consisted of a state trooper warning SFC Gerald about following another car too closely; the trooper did not issue a citation or a warning ticket. At the second stop, two other Oklahoma state troopers claimed that he had failed to signal a lane change and not only detained Gerald and his son for more than two hours, but also illegally searched Gerald's car, handcuffed him, humiliated him, interrogated his son and, in the course of a search, caused more than $1,000 in damage to his automobile.
A black man of Panamanian descent and a naturalized American citizen, Gerald is a career soldier. He is a veteran of Operation United Shield in Somalia and Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, for which he received the Bronze Star. "It is disgraceful that a soldier who has traveled around the world representing United States interests a man who even risked his life for his country should be treated as a second class citizen in his own land," said Reginald T. Shuford, the ACLU attorney who represents Gerald in a lawsuit against the police.
During the second traffic stop, one of the troopers mentioned a recent drug bust and asked to search Gerald's car. Exercising his rights, Gerald politely declined the request. Also, aware that military protocol dictated that his Commanding Officer ("CO") be notified of his detention, Gerald requested that the troopers phone his CO. Not only did they refuse to do so, but they also denied Gerald permission to make such a call on his own cellular phone.
After receiving a warning ticket, Gerald asked if he could leave but was denied permission to do so. The trooper persisted in asking Gerald for permission to search his car and when Gerald continued to politely decline, the trooper began badgering him. The troopers kept questioning Gerald as to the reason he refused to consent to the search and began speculating as to whether he was transporting weapons or other contraband.
The troopers then incorrectly stated that Oklahoma law allowed them to conduct a search without the owner's consent. Conveniently, there was a trained canine in the other trooper's vehicle. Although the dog performed an exterior search of the entire car, it did not "alert" as to the presence of drugs or other contraband. However, the trooper claimed that the dog did "alert" and claimed he then had the basis for a fullscale search of the vehicle.
Throughout the search, Gerald was accused of running drugs and laundering money accusations that he repeatedly denied. Having drilled holes into the automobile's floor, the troopers found what they thought was an illegal compartment. It was really a footrest, a feature of the car. A trooper then handcuffed Gerald, placed him in the front seat of the police car, and threatened that the police canine would bite if he attempted to escape; his son Gregory was placed in the back seat.
Next, a trooper turned off the car airconditioning as well as the car's video evidence camera and removed the tape apparently violating police procedure. Gregory, Gerald's minor child, was later moved to the other trooper's car for interrogation outside the presence of his father and without his father's consent. Before continuing the search, the troopers then raised the hoods of their cars, an action apparently taken to so as to obstruct the views of both Gerald and Gregory.
The terrorizing ordeal of the second traffic stop lasted more than two hours, during which over onethousand dollars of damage was done to Gerald's car and he was accused of being a drug runner, a money launderer, and was handcuffed and threatened by the troopers. When Gerald and Gregory were released with nothing more than a warning ticket, Gerald asked what the troopers were going to do about the mess they had created of his car and baggage. They replied, "We ain't good at repacking."
Concerned that the troopers may have planted drugs in his car especially since his view of much of the search was obstructed by the raised car hood Gerald called his CO, Captain Rhodes, immediately after the troopers departed. Captain Rhodes advised Gerald to go to nearby Fort Sill and have the Directorate of Public Safety search his car. The search was conducted by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, which used a canine trained to detect narcotics. No evidence of drugs or contraband was found.
On May 18, 1999, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the decorated Army veteran, who was the victim of racial profiling by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. "Throughout his ordeal, Gerald made all the right moves, while the troopers made all the wrong moves," said ACLU attorney Shuford. "Despite how the troopers treated him and his son, he never abandoned his respectful manner or his dignity."
The lawsuit, the first of its kind in Oklahoma, alleges violations not only of federal civil rights law but also of the Geralds' constitutional rights to equal treatment and protection from unreasonable search and seizure. The ACLU is seeking unspecified damages on behalf of Gerald and his son, as well as an injunction requiring state troopers to stop their practice of racial profiling and to establish legal safeguards, including a traffic stops reporting system, to prevent future incidents.
In recent months, news reports have focused on incidents of racial profiling across the country, a phenomenon so widespread that it is referred to as "Driving While Black or Brown" or "DWB." The ACLU has defended numerous victims of this practice.
"With this lawsuit, the ACLU is sending a message to troopers in Oklahoma and around the nation, and that message is: driving while black or brown is not a crime," stated Executive Director of the ACLU of Oklahoma, Joann Bell.
