Rawstory: Georgia deputies infuriate school officials with ‘humiliating’ roadside search of Black lacrosse team’s luggage (updated)

Rawstory: Georgia deputies infuriate school officials with ‘humiliating’ roadside search of Black lacrosse team’s luggage by Travis Gettys:

Sheriff’s deputies in Georgia stopped a bus carrying a mostly Black women’s lacrosse team under the apparent assumption there was marijuana on board, and the players and their coaches were humiliated and angered by the experience.

The Delaware State University team was stopped April 20 in Liberty County on their way home from playing a game at Stetson University in Florida, and bus driver Tim Jones said he was initially told the stop was for a lane violation — but a video taken by one of the players shows a search for drugs, reported USA Today.

“If there is anything in y’all’s luggage, we’re probably gonna find it, okay?” an officer says in the video recorded by player Saniya Craft. “I’m not looking for a little bit of marijuana, but I’m pretty sure you guys’ chaperones are probably going to be disappointed in you if we find any.”

Liberty County. You can cut the irony with a knife.

Update: WaPo: HBCU lacrosse team accuses police of racial profiling in search of bus by Timothy Bella

Update 2: Yahoo Sports: Sheriff falsely claims deputies didn’t search luggage during HBCU lacrosse bus stop in Georgia by Ryan Young (“The Liberty County, Georgia, sheriff defended deputies that stopped the Delaware State University women’s lacrosse team bus last month. But body camera footage released from that stop contradicts the claims that Sheriff William Bowman made.”)

Update 3: NBC News: Bodycam video shows deputies searching Black women’s lacrosse team’s personal items by Char Adams (“Newly released body camera footage of Georgia sheriff’s deputies stopping a majority-Black lacrosse team’s bus shows the officers rifling through the players’ personal items — after the sheriff asserted the deputies did no such thing. Liberty County Sheriff William Bowman said in a statement Tuesday that deputies weren’t racially profiling the women’s lacrosse team for Delaware State University, a historically Black university, when they stopped the team’s bus on April 20. He also said that ‘no personal items on the bus or any person were searched.’ But the body camera footage tells another story.”).

So who is lying? The Sheriff or the deputies reporting to him. If the later, are they going to be disciplined for allowing the Sheriff to make a fool of himself? Or did he do it to himself by not looking at the video first? Or both?

Update 4: NPR: Delaware AG asks for federal civil rights review after HBCU team stopped by police by Jonathan Franklin (“The team’s bus was headed northbound on Interstate 95 in Liberty County, Ga., on April 20 after playing games in Georgia and Florida.”)

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