Thursday, October 26, 2017
By Justin Wier
YOUNGSTOWN
Under Police Chief Drew Rauzan, Campbell officers issued more than 180 obstructed-view citations over three years.
A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court claims those arrests disproportionately targeted minorities.
Three former East High School coaches who are black filed the suit, which argues they were subject to an unreasonable search and seizure and not provided equal protection under the law during a Feb. 26, 2016, traffic stop.
An officer pulled over Jerron Jenkins, Mark Greene and Bryant Youngblood Jr. while they were on their way to a coaching conference in Pittsburgh.
The three were detained while a drug-sniffing dog conducted a search of their car and their suitcases.
The search turned up only blood-pressure medication, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court.
Jenkins received a traffic citation for having an obstructed view due to air fresheners attached to his rear-view mirror.
An incident report filed by the arresting officer lists “numerous vision obstructions” as the reason for the stop.
Police arrested Greene on a charge of obstructing official business because he questioned the legality of the stop, the complaint said.
The report said Greene began yelling when officers asked Jenkins to get out of the car so they could conduct a “free-air sniff” with a police dog and that he ignored further commands.
He stepped out of the car after officers threatened him with a stun device, according to the report.
Prosecutors dismissed the charge of obstructing official business.
The report does not list a reason for officers’ requesting the drug-sniffing police dog.
The lawsuit further accuses the city of committing civil-rights violations.
Campbell police officers issued an excessive number of citations between 2014 and 2016 for obstructed view because drivers had air fresheners or other similar hangings on their rear-view mirrors, according to the complaint, which added that the citations were disproportionately issued against minorities.
Though the lawsuit claims thousands of citations were issued, the Campbell clerk of courts has records of 186 citations for obstructed view over the three years. They comprised about 2 percent of the department’s traffic citations.
Rauzan led the Campbell Police Department from 2013 through January 2017, when he resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
In August, he pleaded guilty to misusing a law-enforcement database and was ordered to never work as a police officer again.
After Greene’s arrest, Rauzan told him Campbell police are instructed to stop motorists with air fresheners in their cars “in order to keep people from the East Side of Youngstown out of the city of Campbell,” according to the lawsuit.
Rauzan told Greene that stopping people with air fresheners in their cars lowered the number of shootings in the city, the lawsuit said.
Contacted by The Vindicator Wednesday, Rauzan denied telling Greene he instructed police to stop motorists with air fresheners.
“There was never any directive to target folks with obstructed views,” he said. “The only directive we ever used is just to do your job.”
Rauzan declined to comment further on the lawsuit, as he has yet to see it.
Atty. David Engler, who is representing the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit is about more than race.
“Not all air fresheners are obstructed views, but Campbell treated it like that,” he said. “People should not be stopped in their cars without some reasonable suspicion of criminal activities.”
The rate of obstructed-view citations has abated since Rauzan resigned, Engler added.
The suit asks for compensatory damages of no less than $500,000 and punitive damages of no less than $1 million for each of the three plaintiffs.