Racial Profiling Denied By GA Sheriff In Drug Search Of HBCU Team Bus

GEORGIA — A south Georgia sheriff whose department drew national attention for conducting a drug search on a bus carrying a Black lacrosse team defended his deputies’ actions Tuesday as legal and not racially motivated.

Liberty County Sheriff William Bowman — who himself is Black — also asked for feedback from the Delaware State University’s women’s lacrosse team itself on how to better handle a similar situation in the future.

“From what I gather, I believe that the stop was legal, but I also understand my duty to help the public understand law enforcement while seeking ways to improve services,” said Bowman, reading Tuesday from a prepared statement.

Delaware State is a historically black college located in Dover, Delaware.

The furor started with an April 20 traffic stop by Liberty County deputies — all white — of a charter bus on Interstate 95 carrying Delaware State’s women’s lacrosse team home from a game in Florida.

According to published reports and Bowman himself, the bus initially was pulled over for traveling in the wrong lane for a commercial vehicle. But when a drug-sniffing dog responded positively outside the bus, Bowman said, Liberty County deputies decided they would search the bus’s luggage compartment.

Bowman told reporters Tuesday that deputies couldn’t tell who was in the bus because of the height of its windows and the fact they were tinted.

When the deputies entered the bus to explain their search, at least one student took pictures and recorded the explanation. That video was later posted to YouTube and titled “Racism in the South.”

“We’re gonna check y’all’s luggage, OK?” a white deputy seen in the video told the passengers. “If there is anything in y’all’s luggage, we’re probably going to find it, OK? I’m not looking for a little bit of marijuana, but I’m pretty sure you guys’ chaperones are gonna be disappointed in you if we find any. You guys are on a lacrosse team, correct? So if there is something in there that is questionable, please tell me now. Because if we find it, guess what, we’re not going to be able to help you. You are in the state of Georgia, and marijuana is still illegal in the state of Georgia.”

The deputy then asked if he’d explained the search properly and told the passengers they would finish in a few minutes.

The deputies and their dogs spent 20 to 30 minutes searching through the contents of the bus’s luggage compartment. They didn’t find anything illegal or suspicious.

The officers did not apologize for the search either, according to lacrosse team coach Pamella Jenkins.

“They came on the bus and they said, ‘OK, ladies, we didn’t find anything. You’re free to go',” Jenkins told Philadelphia public TV and radio station WHYY.

Jenkins also said the driver was not issued a ticket. However, Bowman said, bus driver Tim Brown was given a warning for driving in the wrong lane.

Bowman told reporters Tuesday that Liberty County deputies searched another commercial vehicle on I-95 earlier that day and found drugs.

Still, passengers on the bus found the incident disturbing, Jenkins said to the Philadelphia news outlet.

Liberty County officials didn’t give the stop a second thought until one of the players on the bus wrote an article about it for Delaware State’s student newspaper, The Hornet. The article — along with the YouTube video — was posted on May 4 and soon went viral.

“The team members were in shock, as they witnessed the officers rambling through their bags,” wrote sophomore Sydney Anderson. “They brought the K-9 dog out to sniff their luggage. The cops began tossing underwear and other feminine products, in an attempt to locate narcotics.”

The perception that the team had been racially profiled by Southern sheriff’s deputies triggered an uproar — and a statement Monday by Delaware State President Tony Allen.

“We do not intend to let this or any other incident like it pass idly by,” Allen wrote. “We are prepared to go wherever the evidence leads us.”

According to WHYY, Allen is a friend of President Joe Biden who helped plan the presidential inauguration. He also is chair of Biden’s HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Board of Advisors.

That evidence will unfold as Liberty County conducts a formal review of the incident, Bowman said, adding he does not allow or encourage racial profiling in his department.

“As a veteran, a former Georgia State trooper and the sheriff of this department, I do not exercise racial profiling, allow racial profiling or encourage racial profiling,” Bowman said.

There is no incident report on file connected with the stop, according to an administrative assistant as confirmed by a Patch reporter. However, body camera footage is available and was posted by at least one Savannah, Georgia, TV station.

“Although I do not believe any racial profiling took place based on the information I currently have, I welcome feedback from our community on ways that our law-enforcement practices can be improved while still maintaining the law,” Bowman said.