The R card was trumped by dash cam.
Via The Blade
A Toledo councilman’s accusation that two city police officers pulled him over last month because he is black was deemed “unfounded” and video of the traffic stop, which was released today, show inconsistencies with his story.
Councilman Larry Sykes said he was stopped by police without any apparent probable cause. He wrote a letter to Toledo police Chief William Moton claiming he was racially profiled, which sparked an internal affairs “major-complaint” investigation.
Mr. Sykes, a former Toledo Board of Education member who was elected in November to city council, was pulled over on South Byrne Road, at South Avenue, at 9:25 p.m. April 24 after leaving the studios of WGTE-TV for a program on senior citizens and hunger.
Mr. Sykes, who is black, wrote in his letter to the chief that the officer, who is white, likely racially profiled him. Mr. Sykes said he has been racially profiled many times in the past by law enforcement officers, and that the license plate of the sport-utility vehicle he was driving that night reads “4DRWBLK,” which stands for “4 driving while black.”
An internal affairs report stated that the two officers in the cruiser that night – Derek Cranford, a three-year veteran, and David Sprott, a rookie officer who was on his fourth shift — saw that Mr. Sykes’ sport utility vehicle lacked a front license plate which was their reason for making a traffic stop. The police cruiser made a U-turn and followed him.
Once Mr. Sykes stopped, as shown in video and documented in the internal-affairs report, Officer Cranford, who was driving the patrol car, got out of the car and approached Mr. Sykes’ vehicle and tapped his knuckle twice on the driver’s-side window.
In the letter to Chief Moton, and repeatedly in interviews with internal affairs investigators, Mr. Sykes said Officer Cranford never gave a reason for the traffic stop.
Investigators noted that the second statement Officer Cranford made to Mr. Sykes, after asking how he was doing, was to say he could not read Mr. Sykes’ license plate.