Black teen handcuffed after wide turn sues LMPD for eyeing him as 'perfect target'

Courier Journal

The Louisville Metro Police Department may now have to pay for last year's traffic stop of Tae-Ahn Lea, the African American teenager who was forcibly removed from his car, frisked and handcuffed while a police dog searched his vehicle after making a wide turn.

In a suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court against Chief Steve Conrad, the commander of the Ninth Mobile Division and five officers, Lea says he was “verbally abused, threatened, lied to, embarrassed, humiliated, and mocked” by officers who combed through his vehicle “in desperate hopes of finding something to justify their conduct. Nothing was found.”

The 27-page complaint also alleged Conrad and the division’s commander, William Hibbs, knew or should have known that their orders to use “aggressive policing for minor violations in black neighborhoods as a way to reduce violent crime" would result in “biased policing and unconstitutional stops and searches of citizens, the majority of whom are black males and persons living in poverty-stricken neighborhoods.”

The suit also charges that Conrad designed his “People, Places and Narcotics” strategy to pay officers overtime and give them “carte blanche to target black males.”

“Ninth Mobile officers were essentially trained and encouraged to pull over vehicles with black males, search them, detain them, and then cross their fingers that the vehicle reveals drugs or unregistered guns,” Lea’s suit says.

Background:LMPD handcuffed a black teen for a wide turn

The department did not immediately respond to requests for comment, although Conrad has said when he viewed a video of the stop in February, he was disturbed and ordered an internal affairs investigation that is still pending.

Lea, who lives in Park Duvalle, was pulled over Aug. 9, 2018, and cited for allegedly making an illegal wide turn. The citation was later dismissed.

In an April 5 story about the stop, the Courier Journal quoted policing experts who said the pat-down of Lea violated a Supreme Court rule that allows such searches only if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the subject is armed or dangerous.

The stop, which has been viewed online more than 2.2 million times, prompted a furor in the community and on the Metro Council. Last month, Conrad issued new traffic stop procedures to take effect Aug. 1 that impose restrictions on removing motorists from vehicles and searching and handcuffing them.

He also announced that traffic stops will only be conducted for safety reasons or if police have grounds to suspect a driver has committed a crime.

The suit was filed the day after the Courier Journal, citing an analysis of department data, reported that black drivers are three times more likely to be searched in traffic stops than white motorists.

Lea alleges that the officers violated his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and that Conrad and Hibbs failed to properly train their officers.

Named as defendants, along with Conrad and Hibbs, are officers Kevin Crawford and Gabriel Hellard, who pulled Lea over; canine Officer Jeff McCauley; and Jason McNeil and Kiersten Holman, who also came to the scene.

The suit, which has been assigned to Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings, was filed by attorneys Lonita Baker, Sam Aguiar and Josephine Buckner.

In an interview, Baker said the most egregious violations by police were frisking and cuffing Lea without probable cause and extending the search to get a drug-sniffing dog to the scene, which the Supreme Court has held is unconstitutional.

She said she expects Lea, now 19, to prevail.

LMPD spokesman Dwight Mitchell said the department does not comment on pending litigation.

The suit includes pointed attacks on the Ninth Mobile Division, a roving unit that was launched in 2015 to reduce violence and get drugs off the street.

It says division offices display “a pattern and practice of aggressively and illegally targeting black motorists and pulling them over in a pack-like mentality.

"They then proceed with surrounding the vehicles, subjecting the vehicle occupants to unlawful and humiliating searches, engaging in unlawful and intrusive searches of the vehicles and performing the conduct with a collectively racist and bullying demeanor.”

The complaint notes that Lea was an honors graduate from Central High School and its homecoming king, had no criminal history and was gainfully employed as a car salesman.

“Tae-Ahn, however, also happens to be black, live in a low-income neighborhood, and drive his mother’s fairly new vehicle,” the suit says. “He was thus the perfect target for members of the Ninth Mobile.”

Andrew Wolfson: 502-582-7189; awolfson@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @adwolfson. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/andreww.