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Discrimination * USA - OOIDA member sues New Mexico troopers for racial profiling
Looking around the port of entry office, most of the other drivers were black
Lordsburg,NM,USA -Land Line Magazine, by Charlie Morasch -May 20, 2009: -- Looking around the port of entry office, Curtis Blackwell noticed something common among the drivers waiting to talk to officers at the Port of Entry in Lordsburg, NM... Like him, most of the other drivers were black... Blackwell had been placed out of service for 24 hours after police found unopened beer and liquor in his truck’s tool box accessible from outside the truck. The officer accused him of being on drugs, and made him go through a series of sobriety tests on that mid-August day in 2008... Blackwell – a veteran of the road for more than 40 years – said tension between truckers and officers at the Port of Entry was palpable... Blackwell filed a lawsuit against the New Mexico Motor Transportation Division in early May. The suit names three state troopers for allegedly targeting commercial vehicles driven by black drivers for inspections, searches and detentions in Lordsburg... The lawsuit was filed in federal court in New Mexico, and seeks compensatory and punitive damages, the removal of an alcohol citation from Blackwell’s record, and a declaration that the citation is unconstitutional... Blackwell, who began his trucking career in 1967, hopes the lawsuit will remove the citation from his record and reimburse him for increased insurance expenses since the violation... More importantly, Blackwell says, he hopes the lawsuit will protect drivers from discrimination in the future, at least at the Lordsburg Port of Entry... (Photo from mike-snook: New Mexico State)
Labels: discrimination
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