Cops Accused of Racial Profiling; Stop Man 258 Times at Work (@VladTV)

A Florida police department is facing racial profiling charges after stopping a man 258 times and repeatedly charging him with trespassing at the convenience store where he works. At least once a week for the last four years, Earl Sampson has been stopped by Miami Gardens police and searched more than 100 times, jailed 56 times and arrested for trespassing 62 times, records show.

The only conviction he’s had, according to his lengthy records, is for marijuana possession.
“They created this record,” Sampson’s boss and the owner of 207 Quickstop, Alex Saleh, told the Daily News Friday. “He’s a good guy, a humble guy, a quiet guy. He’s not a convicted felon.”

Saleh plans to present a civil rights suit against the city’s police department and mayor next week after he installed security cameras to monitor the police’s activity in and outside his store.

The resulting footage since obtained by the Miami Herald is described by Saleh as beyond legal but disturbing as well.

During one of Sampson’s arrests — Sampson being just one of Saleh’s alleged employees and customers subjected to police harassment he’s seen refilling a cooler inside the store when an officer walks up beside him.

“They ask him, ‘What are you doing here?'” recalled Saleh. “He said, ‘I work here.’ The clerk said he works here. I said, ‘I’m the owner, let him go. I work here.’ The officer said, ‘Yeah right.’

“So he has more power than me!”

In addition to video appearing to show Sampson being grabbed by an officer while taking out the trash and at another time searched against a wall, Saleh accuses them of searching throughout his store without a warrant.

In a statement released to the Miami Herald, Boyd said “the department is committed to serving and protecting the citizens and businesses in the city.”

Watch surveillance footage of Sampson being harassed and arrested above. 

Source: Bossip