Paper: Houston Chronicle

Date: Tue 12/18/2007

Section: B Page: 1 MetFront Edition: 3 STAR Couple claim profiling is real

By LISA FALKENBERG

Staff

FEAR of police is a recent phenomenon for Kevin Wilson.

Until last December, the 38-year-old black, man who lives in Fresno and owns a barber shop in the Third Ward, didn't tense up at the sound of a siren. The native Houstonian, who had worked mall security in college, said he always looked up to police, assumed they were the good guys. He'd never been harassed, never been pulled over for a dim license plate light.

"You know, I really used to think that the police really just didn't harass people for no reason," Wilson told me. "I just thought that when these people said they were being harassed, they must have done something wrong."

His perspective changed on Dec. 3, 2006, when Wilson says his first trouble with the law quickly escalated into one of the most humiliating experiences of his life.

In a federal civil rights lawsuit filed last month, Wilson and his wife, Melinda, allege, among other things, racial profiling, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and invasion of privacy. The Wilsons are suing Dillard's department store, the Houston Police Department, HPD officers Ariel Ferrer and Syed Bukhari and the city because it oversees the police.

`Mind your own business'

Spokesmen for Dillard's and HPD declined to comment on pending litigation. Bukhari didn't return a call to his home and Ferrer didn't respond to a message left at work.

Wilson tells the story this way: He and his wife had just finished breakfast and dropped their boys, ages 9 and 12, at his mother's house when they headed to the Galleria for some Christmas shopping. Parking spots were scarce, so, Wilson says, he circled a couple of times past the Dillard's entrance, where a few police officers moonlighting as Dillard's security guards stood near a trash can.

Just before Wilson and his wife entered Dillard's, Wilson said he disposed of a few items in the entryway trash can: some napkins, a cup, an Ozarka water bottle, which still contained a little water, mixed with a packet of diet flavoring. Wilson said he greeted the officers.

A short time later, Wilson said he and his wife were looking at clothes in the children's department when Ferrer approached him with what appeared to be the Ozarka bottle he'd just trashed.

"What is this?" Wilson said Ferrer asked him. When he responded that it was Crystal Light,

Wilson said the officer replied that it resembled codeine. Wilson said he didn't do drugs. His wife interrupted to request the officers' badge numbers, but Ferrer told her to "shut up and mind her own business before I take you to jail," according to Kevin Wilson's sworn affidavit.

A short time later, Wilson was searched, arrested and escorted through Dillard's in handcuffs, right past one of his barber shop clients. He was taken to a security office, where he says Bukhari advised him that he wouldn't be in this predicament "if your wife had kept her mouth shut," and if he'd watched the Chris Rock show, in which the comedian apparently had explained what not to say to avoid getting arrested.

Wilson said he began to wonder if he wouldn't be in this predicament if his skin weren't black, if he didn't wear diamond stud earrings and a nice bracelet, if the officers hadn't seen him driving his Yukon with TV monitors for the kids and 24-inch rims. Police records list Ferrer as Hispanic and Bukhari as Asian/Pacific Islander.

"I kept telling them `just taste it. It's nothing but water.' And they were like `this isn't Miami. We don't taste drugs here.' And I said `that's what I'm trying to tell you. It's actually the Great Value Wal-Mart brand of Crystal Light. You can get the whole box for $1.76. It's the cherry lime-aid flavor."

The officers didn't relent. As his wife cried, Wilson was loaded into the back of a police car and taken to the station, where he was booked, fingerprinted, charged with drug possession and jailed.

Release, but no apology

Wilson's Houston attorney, Troy Pradia, said the officers could have released him while the substance was tested, and then issued a warrant for his arrest if it contained drugs.

But they didn't. Wilson said he spent more than 20 hours behind bars before police sent his wife to inform him that the results were negative.

No one apologized when he was released or when the charge was dropped. A complaint Wilson filed with HPD internal affairs alleging improper police procedure and personal conduct was "not sustained," according to a June letter from HPD.

The Wilsons' lawsuit accuses HPD of failing to properly train the officers and, in effect, sanctioning police misconduct and racial profiling, in part by inadequately investigating it. Dillard's is accused of failing to train its security guards and provide direction in interacting with customers.

Pradia said Dillard's has a history of hiring off-duty officers as security guards to avoid liability.

Wilson said he hopes the lawsuit, which seeks damages, will show racial profiling is real and shouldn't be tolerated. He said the ordeal has been emotional for his family, especially his sons. One broke down crying in school shortly after his father's arrest.

"I told them `you guys know that I get up everyday and go to work. You know that I don't do nothing illegal," Wilson said.

He also told them, "don't think that all police are bad. It's just that these guys chose to harass me and profile me because of my skin color. And this is something that you're going to have to deal with growing up in America."

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