A Black Massachusetts man has accused the Worcester Police Department of racial profiling, saying he has been stopped by officers dozens of times in the last decade.
TJ Juty of Worcester started recording the traffic stops on his cellphone. The videos don't capture the whole story, but his lawyer, Joseph Hennessey, argues they show enough to counter the narrative in police reports. This month, the court disagreed, denying his motion to dismiss some charges against his client. Now, he's working to prove a pattern in a larger civil rights lawsuit.
In one encounter with police Juty recorded in 2020, an officer is heard telling him,"You look like someone who has a warrant and we need to confirm or deny it."Sign up for NECN newsletters. "Three of us were all Black in the car, and then, out of nowhere, cops just run up to the car, they just run up to the window," Juty recalled."He's asking me, 'Oh, what's your name, you look like you got a warrant.'"After about half an hour, they let him go, telling him he is not the man they were looking for.