The Maryland ACLU filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Maryland State Police, alleging the agency is withholding key documents in an NAACP “Driving While Black” lawsuit.
“It raises red flags for the Maryland State Police to be so strenuously resisting some of the NAACP?s reasonable requests for information about steps the department has taken to ensure racial profiling is not perpetuated or tolerated on our highways,” said Maryland ACLU Legal Director Deborah Jeon.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit in Baltimore County Circuit Court on behalf of the Maryland State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which oversees the county and city branches.
The lawsuit alleges violations of the Maryland Public Information Act, stemming from an information request initially made by the NAACP in February 2007.
Several portions of the NAACP?s request were denied, including requests for records related to the state police internal investigations of racial profiling complaints, according to the lawsuit.
“In this time of creeping government secrecy, Marylanders should be especially vigilant in preserving their basic ?right to know? about important issues of public trust,” ACLU senior staff attorney Reginald Shuford said in a statement.
The ACLU also alleges that state police are charging exorbitant fees for those documents they are willing to turn over to the NAACP.
Police sent a bill to the NAACP for $55,000 ? the equivalent of 75 cents per page of discovery ? and a charge of about $90 per hour for gathering the documents, according to the ACLU?s lawsuit.
Robert Wilkins, a lawyer, filed a lawsuit with members of his family in 1993 in the U.S. District Court in Baltimore City alleging they were the victims of “racial profiling” ? the practice of stopping motorists and searching them based on race.
Wilkins and the state police resolved some of their differences after the state police agreed, among other things, to compile quarterly reports containing detailed information ofcomplaints alleging racial profiling.
In February, the NAACP requested to inspect state police documents to see whether the agency was continuing to comply with the agreement, but state police failed to comply, the ACLU alleges.
“Marylanders have a basic right of access to records kept by their government, especially when they show whether government agencies are following the law in a race-neutral manner,” Wilkins said.
State police spokesman Greg Shipley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
