LOUISVILLE, Ky., (WDRB) – Four young Black men who worked together at United Parcel Service claim they were approached by several Louisville Metro Police officers, held at gunpoint, searched, and taunted before being released with no explanation or charges, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The four men, all between the ages of 19 and 21, lived in the same neighborhood, have known each other since elementary school and worked together at UPS, when they went out looking for an apartment to share after work on Feb. 10, 2023, the lawsuit alleges.
The men, Duron Weaver, Micah Gazaway, Dushon Weaver and De-Arreon Williams, had stopped at a Burger King in the 3700 block of Diann Marie Rd., and were eating in their vehicle when four unmarked police vehicles surrounded them with their lights on, according to the lawsuit, filed in Jefferson Circuit Court.
The lawsuit, filed by attorney Shaun Wimberly, claims four officers approached the vehicle wearing bullet proof vests with guns drawn and yelled at the men not to move and put their hands up.
The men were ordered to turn the car off and throw the car keys out the window, while officers pointed weapons at them, the suit says.
Duron Weaver, who was driving, was removed from the vehicle and questioned by one of the officers, none of whom are named in the lawsuit.
“Where is your I.D.? Where are you all going? Where are you all coming from? Where do you all live?” an officer allegedly asked him.
While Weaver answered the questions, he also asked what the men had done wrong, why were they being held at gunpoint and for the names of the officers, the suit says.
"I was scared for my life," Weaver told WDRB News on Wednesday.
The officers allegedly refused to answer questions. Throughout the incident, the men repeatedly asked these same questions of officers but were allegedly ignored.
While Duron Weaver was being questioned, an officer screamed toward his twin brother Dushon Weaver questioning whether he had a gun in his hoodie.
Police searched the vehicle and didn’t find anything, according to the suit.
Duron Weaver was allegedly told “in a sarcastic manner that, ‘You can go back to your car and enjoy your breakfast.'”
Police forced Dushon Weaver out of the vehicle and questioned whether he had a gun, whose car they were in and “Why didn’t you get a burger?” the suit claims.
Dushon Weaver answered the questions and was then told to stand near one of the undercover police vehicles.
When he asked what the men had done and why he was forced out of the vehicle, an officer allegedly asked him what kind of shoes he was wearing.
“Those are the YEEZY, right?” an unnamed officer allegedly asked in a “sarcastic manner.” “Where is the gun?”
Gazaway, still being held at gunpoint, was removed from the vehicle, where police searched him, looking in his pockets, removing his wallet and other items.
Williams and Gazaway were told to go stand next to an undercover police vehicle, and police continued to ask them questions about where they were going, where they live and where they had come from, the suit says.
One officer searching the vehicle said, “No gun. Man, there is no gun! There is no gun!” according to the lawsuit.
“Now you all can go back to eating your sandwich,” an officer allegedly then told Williams and Gazaway.
The men were not charged. Wimberly, the attorney representing the men, said he has not received any body cam yet.
The lawsuit argued the “unannounced military styled actions” of police “ambushing” the men while they were not breaking any laws created a fear that they were in “sudden danger” if they failed to comply with officers.
"They need to actually know what they did was wrong," Duron Weaver told WDRB News. "We were minding our business, getting something to eat, and they wrongly did us, and that's not acceptable."
Wimberly cites multiple similar lawsuits, saying it shows a pattern of racially biased stops by police.
"The behaviors of these officers have gone on so long that they don't even know that they're doing wrong," Wimberly said. "They've been unchecked."
The lawsuit accused four unnamed officers of an unlawful search violating the constitutional rights of the men and ignoring recommendations made in the Department of Justice Report on the Louisville police department.
The DOJ report said police have "relied heavily on pretextual traffic stops in Black neighborhoods," pulling citizens over for minor traffic offenses in order to investigate for other crimes.
LMPD has been sued several times for traffic stops claiming racial bias by officers, including the 2018 viral stop of then 18-year-old Tae-Ahn Lea. Lea, who is Black, was removed from his car and handcuffed for about 20 minutes after police pulled him over for making a wide turn. The city paid $375,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by Lea.
Former Chief Steve Conrad ordered new policies for traffic stops in 2019 that raised the threshold for pulling over drivers and added rules on removing people from vehicles and handcuffing citizens.
The city and Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel are also named as defendants in the lawsuit.
The suit is seeking a jury trial and unspecified monetary damages.
A spokesman for LMPD said the department could not comment on pending litigation.
However, a statement from police said: “The members of LMPD work diligently to make our city a safer place by providing fair, equitable, and constitutional police services to the people of Louisville. The public expects our officers to perform difficult tasks in challenging conditions and maintain a high standard of professionalism. We stand behind those expectations, and meet or exceed them daily.”
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