A man who sued the Bennington Police Department for systemic racial profiling has agreed to a $30,000 cash settlement.
Shamel Alexander sued the town of Bennington and its police department after a 2013 incident in which Alexander was riding in a taxi that was stopped by Bennington police, supposedly for an equipment violation.
The stop quickly became an investigation of Alexander, who was arrested on a drug offense. However, his subsequent conviction was unanimously overturned by the Vermont Supreme Court for violation of Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, because of a lack of reasonable suspicion that Alexander was committing a crime.
Following the conclusion of the criminal case, Alexander, represented by the ACLU of Vermont, filed suit against the department for racial profiling.
“This settlement does not alleviate the need for top-to-bottom changes to a deeply troubled police department and to a municipal leadership that continues to deny there is even a problem with unconstitutional police practices in Bennington,” said Lia Ernst, senior staff attorney at the ACLU. “The people of Bennington deserve far better.”
Bennington police did not respond to request for comment Wednesday.
Bennington’s lawyers twice asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit, and was rejected both times. In his denial of Bennington’s motion to dismiss, Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled that it was reasonable to infer that if Bennington had appropriately trained or supervised its police officers with respect to racial disparities in stops and searches, Alexander would not have been stopped or searched, and as such, his civil rights would not have been violated.
The judge’s decision cited a report that Bennington police were five times more likely to search Black drivers as white drivers, though searches of Black drivers were less likely to yield an arrestable offense. The data was observable in 22 of the department’s 24 officers.
Additionally, an April report by the International Association of Chiefs of Police described a “warrior mentality” in the department, along with a series of recommendations for the department. A survey of local residents showed that 40% of respondents didn’t trust BPD, and 20% of respondents said they had experienced discrimination.
Bennington officials are now discussing how to respond to the report.
“The ongoing problems with Bennington police show the limits of traditional police reform efforts and the need to more boldly reimagine the future of policing in this state,” Jay Diaz, senior staff attorney with the ACLU said in a statement. “The events of the past several weeks show that people are not going to tolerate lip service and half measures any longer.”
