Another lawsuit alleging racial profiling filed against Des Moines officer

Another lawsuit has been filed claiming racial profiling by a Des Moines police officer who was removed from patrol last year after multiple black men raised that accusation.

The lawsuit accuses Officer Kyle Thies of constitutional violations related to a July traffic stop involving Des Moines resident Courtney Saunders and a now-dismissed criminal charge against him.

It's the second such lawsuit against Thies in the last year. Two additional recent lawsuits allege other Des Moines officers have improperly detained black men.

The social justice organization Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement contends police profiling is pervasive and contributes to alarming rates of African American imprisonment. The group says the cases behoove Des Moines' city council to act with specific reforms that would better identify pretextual stops — when officers stop a car for one reason, but then use the stop to investigate something else.

More:Residents pan Des Moines' racial profiling proposal

“Officer Thies is among others with the same issue,” said Sharon Zanders-Ackiss, a senior staff member of CCI. “I think what everybody wants to see is something called 'accountability'”

Thies turned around his vehicle and followed Saunders' vehicle because a turn he made in the early morning of July 8 “didn’t feel right,” according to the officer’s Oct. 25 deposition.

Thies said he stopped Saunders, 29, because he parked too close to a fire hydrant. Thies ultimately wrote Saunders a ticket for an open bottle of liquor that he spotted in the back seat following the stop. (Saunders said the bottle had been there for an extended period. Tests conducted at the scene showed he had not been drinking.)

Saunders contends Thies had no probable cause for the stop, which is a standard used to help protect citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures from law enforcement.

“It’s hard to say” what didn’t feel right, Thies said in the deposition. “I don’t know exactly. It’s kind of what you would call more, I don’t know, instinctive. Like you don’t always have a specific reason for why something felt right.”

Magistrate Judge Heather Dickinson in March ruled there was no credible evidence that Thies and Officer Clint Dee were even aware Saunders was parked next to a fire hydrant until they approached his vehicle. That finding is significant because the parking issue was used by Thies to establish probable cause for the stop. As a result, Dickinson ruled evidence collected in the stop was not admissible in court and found Saunders not guilty.

“The court did not find Officer Thies’ testimony credible, and numerous times during his testimony the court observed that he appeared to be smirking,” Dickinson wrote in her March 21 ruling.

Saunders, who has no previous criminal convictions beyond traffic violations, alleges in a Polk County lawsuit filed June 3 that the stop caused humiliation, degradation, public ridicule and distress. The lawsuit, which also names Dee, Des Moines Police Chief Dana Wingert and the city government, seeks compensatory damages and associated legal costs.

Fifty percent of Thies' 2017 bookings were African Americans, city records cited in court documents show. Des Moines’ population is 11 percent black. Such statistics are not necessarily proof of racial bias because multiple factors, including an officer’s assigned service area and calls for service, affect the rates, the Manhattan Institute and similar groups have long cautioned.

Des Moines did not acknowledge racial bias but nonetheless agreed last month to pay $75,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Montray Little and Jared Clinton. The men, who are black and in their early 20s, allege Thies had in August improperly — based on race — stopped a vehicle they were traveling in. The stop resulted in no criminal charges.

Thies engaged in a series of untrue or unfair observations to justify the stop, CCI said when it last year released video footage of the stop, which has been viewed online more than 12 million times. The group has identified multiple other black men who have publicly alleged Thies improperly stopped them.

The stops are a factor in the disproportionate rates of black inmates in prison, civil rights advocates have argued for decades. In Iowa, black people are imprisoned at 11 times the rates of white people, according to The Sentencing Project.

Des Moines in October agreed to pay $25,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Lonnie Porter, a black man who recorded with his phone a December 2017 stop by officer Sean O’Neill that Porter said showed evidence of racial profiling. And an ongoing lawsuit filed in November by DeJuan Hayes, a black man from West Des Moines, contends officers Brian Minnehan and Ryan Steinkamp racially profiled him.

A review of Thies’ stops “found a deficiency in the courteous and tactful standards of conduct that is expected from all our employees,” Sgt. Paul Parizek, the department’s spokesman, said Monday in comments about the $75,000 settlement in Little and Clinton’s case. The deficiency “has been addressed,” Parizek said without elaboration. Thies was placed on administrative duty in October.

Des Moines police did not respond this week to a request for comment about Saunders’ lawsuit.