RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) 鈥 A historically Black university in North Carolina announced Monday that it has filed a complaint with the Department of Justice seeking a review of a search of a bus carrying students during a traffic stop in South Carolina last month.
Shaw University President Paulette Dillard has accused law enforcement officers in Spartanburg County of racially profiling the 18 students traveling on a contract bus from Raleigh, North Carolina, to a conference in Atlanta on Oct. 5.
Two South Carolina sheriffs have denied that racial profiling played a part in the traffic stop and said the bus was pulled over because it had been swerving.
But at a news conference Monday, Dillard said the issue is how the alleged minor violation turned into a drug search, whether every stop prompts such a search and, if not, what does trigger a search.
鈥淭he harmful effects of eroding individual rights under the pretext of law and order are real 鈥 and they are rampant all over the country,鈥 she said. 鈥淟et鈥檚 be clear鈥 racism is about power and systems; and just because there isn鈥檛 a knee on someone鈥檚 neck doesn鈥檛 mean that no harm is being done.鈥
At a news conference last month, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright called the racial profiling accusations 鈥渏ust false.鈥 Officers stopped the unmarked bus with tinted windows because it had been swerving, he said. The stop was part of 鈥淥peration Rolling Thunder,鈥 a weeklong anti-drug campaign in which deputies and officers with agencies from around the state patrol the county鈥檚 highways.
鈥淚f anything we鈥檙e ever doing is racist, I want to know it, I want to fix it and I want to never let it happen again,鈥 Wright said. 鈥淏ut this case right here has absolutely nothing to do with racism.鈥
A leashed dog 鈥渞an through the baggage,鈥 turning up nothing illegal, Wright said. Police body camera footage shows officers searching several bags in the bus鈥 underbelly storage. The driver received a warning.
The university鈥檚 complaint states that a lane violation would be insufficient justification for a drug search and students鈥 right to privacy was violated because while the driver consented to a luggage compartment search, passengers didn鈥檛 consent to a search of their individual luggage. It also alleges that Operation Rolling Thunder disproportionately targeted Black drivers.
Cherokee County Sheriff Steve Mueller said the officers 鈥渄idn鈥檛 do anything wrong鈥 and could not have known the races of the people inside the bus when they pulled it over.
Wright and Mueller declined to comment Monday on the complaint.
Democratic members of North Carolina鈥檚 congressional delegation asked the Justice Department last month to investigate the incident.
The traffic stop comes after where sheriff鈥檚 deputies pulled over the Delaware State University women鈥檚 lacrosse team bus and searched it for drugs. Tony Allen, the president of the HBCU, said he was 鈥渋ncensed鈥 and accused the law enforcement officers of intimidation and humiliation.
Liberty County Sheriff William Bowman, who is Black, said in May that deputies had found drugs on a different bus that same morning. The team鈥檚 chartered bus was stopped because it was traveling in the left lane, a violation of Georgia law, according to Bowman, who said deputies searched the bus after a drug-sniffing dog 鈥渁lerted鈥 alongside it. No one was arrested or charged and the driver received a warning.
