Georgia
Georgia sheriff’s office accused of racially profiling HBCU women’s lacrosse team
Delaware lacrosse workforce claims racial profiling by Georgia deputies
Members of the Delaware State Lacrosse workforce had been recording as deputies in Liberty County, Georgia boarded their bus following a cease for a site visitors violation. The deputies then proceeded to look the bus, they mentioned, for narcotics utilizing K9 deputies. The Dover-based faculty is exploring authorized choices believing the incident could have been racially motivated.
LIBERTY COUNTY, Ga. – A Southeast Georgia sheriff’s workplace is accused of profiling a university lacrosse workforce by looking their bus for medication throughout a site visitors cease.
The Liberty County Sheriff’s Workplace searched the Delaware State College Ladies’s Lacrosse Staff’s bus and baggage with K9s throughout an April 20 site visitors cease on Interstate 95. A member of the workforce posted a video of the search on YouTube displaying two deputies on the bus telling the workforce they’d be looking their baggage.
“If there’s something in there that’s questionable, please inform me now as a result of if we discover it, guess what? We’re not gonna give you the chance that will help you,” one deputy mentioned. “Marijuana remains to be unlawful within the state of Georgia.”
Delaware State College President Tony Allen known as the search “humiliating” in a letter and referenced a string of bomb threats to Traditionally Black Faculty and College campuses in 2022 as hostility HBCU campuses and college students proceed to face.
“Our mission is a essential one and is as a lot part of the American story as any,” Allen mentioned. “Once more, I say, ‘We will not be moved.’”
Liberty County Sheriff William Bowman mentioned in a press release the site visitors cease was a “business interdiction element” and several other different business automobiles had been stopped that day. He mentioned sure business automobiles are permitted to solely drive in the precise two lanes of the interstate, citing Georgia code.
“We understand that this present setting, even a site visitors cease will be alarming to residents, particularly African People,” he mentioned. “That is why we make an effort to have a various division and rent individuals who consider in group policing and respect for all people.”
Investigators discovered nothing unlawful on the bus. Video posted by a workforce member exhibits deputies looking lacrosse gamers’ baggage and belongings of all of the student-athletes had been searched by police and drug-sniffing canine, based on a letter from the college’s president.
Allen accused deputies of making an attempt to “intimidate” gamers.
Be aware: Delaware State College shared a hyperlink to a YouTube video, publicshed by a workforce member, they are saying exhibits the search. FOX 5 Atlanta has shared the video under.
“To be clear, nothing unlawful was found on this search, and all of our coaches and student-athletes comported themselves with dignity all through a making an attempt and humiliating course of,” Allen mentioned.