Aug. 28, 2010 (United Press International) -- The American Civil Liberties Union says it wants Denver police to reopen an investigation of whether officers racially profiled two black men in a traffic stop.
Denver County Judge Aileen Ortiz-White dismissed the traffic citations, ruling the Feb. 13, 2009, traffic stop was unjustified and without probable cause and that "police conduct was extreme, profane and racially motivated," The Denver Post reported.
Denver police said an earlier internal affairs investigation found the complaint against the department could not be sustained because it could not be determined whether Sgt. Perry Speelman and Officers Tab Davis and Jesse Campion or the two men were telling the truth, the newspaper said.
The ACLU wants that internal investigation reopened, it said.
"Our clients want vindication of their rights," Mark Silverstein, the legal director of the ACLU of Colorado, said. "They were victims of racial profiling. They were subjected to an illegal stop, and they were subjected to taunts and abuse, and they were made to sit on a curb on a night when the temperature dropped to 28 degrees, and they were made to sit there for 45 minutes."
The Denver Police Department could not comment as it had not yet had a chance to study the ACLU request in full, department public information officer Sonny Jackson said.
