GRAND RAPIDS (AP) — A black man who says he was stopped, photographed and fingerprinted by Grand Rapids police despite committing no crime is challenging the practice.
Keyon Harrison said that he and other black boys and young men have been targeted for photos and thumbprints, The Grand Rapids Press reported. The lawsuit said he was a teen walking home from school when he was stopped in 2012.
"Keyon was playing with a bird in the park," his attorney Bernard Schaefer said.
The city denies that minorities have been targeted. It defends the practice, which is used to identify juveniles or older teens with no photo identification.
"Police officers are given false names all the time," City Attorney Catherine Mish said.
The lawsuit, filed in Kent County Circuit Court, names the City of Grand Rapids and police captain who stopped Harrison as defendants. It said Harrison was with a Hispanic friend when the captain saw them go separate ways; the captain directed officers to photograph and thumbprint Harrison. The lawsuit said Harrison was stopped because he is black. Of a dozen reports Schaefer has reviewed, 10 of them involved blacks and the other two were of Hispanics. All were males. The actions by police were "unreasonable and excessive," Schaefer said.
The city said Harrison voluntarily consented to a search of himself and his backpack. It said the photographs and thumbprints were taken solely for identification purposes. Mish said there are no constitutional issues with taking photos of people in public.
"The police officers involved did nothing wrong," Mish said.
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