WVSC STUDENTS ACCUSE POLICE OF RACIAL PROFILING

'Suspicious Vial' Was a Toiletry Item

Three black West Virginia State College students believe Charleston police
used racial profiling and an out-of-state license tag as reasons to pull
them over and harass them Tuesday night.

Police, however, said they do not permit racial profiling and the officers
were just doing their jobs because the men had raised their suspicions.

No citations were issued to the driver, Courtney Shannon, 22, of Chicago.
Police said he committed traffic violations, which led to the initial
pullover on Washington Street near Interstate 64, just past the Greyhound
bus station.

The students were returning from one of the last seminars for their
"Leadership to Government Program," which accepts only the top 5 percent of
the 6,000 students at the college, said Don Gresby, their professor and
coordinator of judicial affairs/special programs at the college.

Male members of the class had been at an East End barbershop, getting
haircuts and facials and learning how to appear properly in public, Gresby
said.

He believes they also got a stern lesson about being young black men in
America. "What angers me is these young men will remember this the rest of
their lives," the 48-year-old professor said.

Nine police officers - in uniform and street garb - surrounded the car with
guns drawn about 9:30 p.m. and ordered Shannon to toss his keys out the
window. The three were then ordered from the car one at a time, handcuffed
and forced to get on their knees.

They were searched. The car was searched. And, all three said at least one
officer kept insisting a person walked up to the Oldsmobile just before the
men pulled out and they took a plastic bag with something white in it from him.

"I said nobody walked up to my car," Shannon said.

But that response did not seem to soothe the cops, he said: "Then they got
mad."

All three men said one officer kept insisting they were calling him a liar.

"He said, 'Come on, I saw the bag.' I said, 'You couldn't have seen
anything,'" Shannon said.

The three had purchased toiletry items before they left the barber shop in
the 1500 block of Washington Street East. Drug unit officers doing
surveillance in a nearby Camry watched them get in their car.

"They saw the guy leave the car right after or before they saw a vial held
up," said Charleston Police Major Jerry Pauley.

Officers believed the vial, which turned out to be the just-purchased
toiletry items, contained crack cocaine, he said.

A patrol car followed the Oldsmobile and Pauley said the men violated
several traffic laws. Shannon was told he did not use his turn signal while
changing to the left lane.

"They had probable cause to stop the car and since they thought there was
drugs involved, they were being careful," Pauley said.

Careful could have been deadly, said Gresby. "What would have happened if
one of these young men had gone into a sneezing fit or hyperventilated?" he
said. "I would have been calling parents."

Passenger Drew Williams, an Atlanta resident who is enrolled in ROTC and is
on the dean's list at State, said with blinding lights on him "all I could
see was guns."

"I was nervous because they had guns on me," Shannon said.

"It was just terrible," said passenger Jason Price, 22, of Kimball. "I was
just nervous. I'm just there and scared."

All three said they had never before been handcuffed or searched, had guns
pointed at them or been forced to kneel on their knees on pavement.

"I've been having flashbacks a lot and I woke up this morning with it,"
said Williams. "It just keeps replaying [in my mind]."

Pauley said someone from the college had called Mayor Jay Goldman's office
to complain about the incident Wednesday. If the men believe they were
mistreated, he said, they should file an official complaint, which
automatically launches an internal probe.

Gresby said administrators at the college, which was founded as a
land-grant institution for black students, are upset and more complaints
will follow.

"This is going back to Jim Crowism," he said.