Black Youth File Racial Profiling Complaint Against Medford Police

MEDFORD, MA — On Monday, Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) filed an internal complaint with the Medford Police Department on behalf of Jeremiah Mamousette and Hibaq Warsame, two Black residents whom the organization says were illegally stopped, removed from their vehicle, searched, handcuffed, and held at gunpoint by nearly a dozen officers on a public street.

According to a statement released by LCR, the incident took place on July 8, 2021 when Mamousette and Warsame were driving through the Winthrop Street rotary in Medford. They noticed noticed a number of police cruisers, some of which were making U-turns in the road to travel in their direction.

A cruiser immediately behind them then turned on its blue police lights and ordered them out of the vehicle over the loudspeaker, LCR said. MPD officers then proceeded to unlawfully search Mamousette and Warsame, restrain them with handcuffs without explanation, and held them at gunpoint throughout the interaction.

The officers did not discover anything of concern and eventually shared that they had stopped the two because of a vague anonymous tip regarding a gun, said LCR. They referred to the search as “standard policy."

“We were unlawfully stopped, handcuffed, and searched at gunpoint not long after the police killings of George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and 13-year-old Adam Toledo,” Mamousette said in a statement. “All I could think during this entire traumatic encounter was that we would be the next names on the list of victims.”

“I just remember standing on that public rotary with my face in the sun as each person drove by and seemed to stare,” Warsame said. “I begged the officer to let me cover my face and explained that I graduated from Medford High School and am a good kid, but my pleas fell on deaf ears.”

LCR frequently brings complaints and lawsuits to hold police accountable, especially in cases of racial profiling.

“It is disheartening to have to continue to bring these complaints for misconduct against police departments in Massachusetts,”Sophia Hall, Deputy Litigation Director at Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement. “How many lawsuits do we need to bring before police departments learn that they are not immune from the law and that they are not hidden from our radar?”

If the internal complaint is not resolved, LCR said they are ready to take further legal action against MPD.