Beverly Hills Police targeted Black people with harassment and arrest for low-level or nonexistent violations in an effort to keep them away from Rodeo Drive, according to a class-action racial discrimination lawsuit filed in California Superior Court Monday by civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Bradley Gage.The complaint centers on the Beverly Hills Police Department’s “Operation Safe Streets,” a campaign to address safety on the city’s famed luxury shopping destination of Rodeo Drive.The suit claims that between March 2020 and July 2021, the task force made 106 arrests — 105 of whom were of Black people.“If 2 percent of the residents of Beverly Hills are Black but almost 100 percent of the arrests are Black [people,] that’s a pretty clear indication something’s wrong,” Gage told The Washington Post Thursday.“The women and men of BHPD take an oath to protect human life and enforce the law — regardless of race,” Beverly Hills Police Chief Dominick Rivetti said in a statement Wednesday.“Any violation of this pledge is contrary to the values of this department.We take all concerns regarding the conduct of our officers very seriously.“ Ben Crump has become the go-to attorney for racial justice: ‘I feel like I’m running out of time’ During a Wednesday news conference announcing the lawsuit, Crump — the attorney best-known for representing the family of George Floyd — framed the alleged racial bias in Beverly Hills as a national scourge that has led to the death or injury of people whose names are now synonymous with racially biased and violent policing.“If implicit bias goes unchecked and discrimination goes unchecked, it leads to what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis; what happened to Breonna Taylor in Louisville; what happened to Jacob Blake Jr.in Kenosha, Wis.,” he said.“That’s what happens if the actions of the Beverly Hills Police Department goes unchecked.”Rivetti in his Wednesday statement said he formed the “Rodeo Drive Team” to address complaints from businesses about a rise in burglary, shoplifting and nuisances such as public intoxication.Rivetti touted the success of the task force, noting that officers arrested individuals with “fraudulently obtained state unemployment benefits” and seizing $250,000 in cash and “ill-gotten debit cards.”The police did not respond to The Post’s request for the number of arrests or their racial breakdown.Gage said his team corroborated the figure through a variety of sources, including Beverly Hills police officers who were troubled by the trend that resulted from the 16-month safety operation.The more than 100 arrestees were cited for a range of noncriminal behaviors such as roller skating or riding a scooter on the sidewalk to low-level infractions such as jaywalking.None of the same behaviors and infractions were enforced against White people, the lawsuit claims.“The way [police] stop them for trivial things is troubling as well,” Gage said, alleging that Black people questioned by police would face four or five officers or have guns drawn on them.
“White people don’t have that.” Big business pledged nearly $50 billion for racial justice after George Floyd’s death.Where did it all go? The two named plaintiffs in the suit were not California residents but visiting from Philadelphia.During a visit to Beverly Hills last September, Khalil White and Jasmine Williams were arrested while riding scooters on the sidewalk and jailed for resisting arrest.The charges, like most of those that stemmed from the operation, were dropped.The lawsuit claims that other incidents with police did not end in arrest but indicate a pattern of harassment and over-policing of Black people.Salehe Bembury, then the vice president of men’s footwear at Versace, was allegedly jaywalking and holding two shopping bags from his store last October when police stopped him, asked for his ID and ran his name for warrants.Bembury filmed the encounter , which went viral.“So I’m in Beverly Hills and I’m getting … searched for shopping at the store I work for and just being Black,” he said in an Instagram video.“You’re making a completely different narrative,” a BHPD officer said in response.The current iteration of the lawsuit focuses on the outcome of Operation Safe Streets, but Gage expects it will broaden to encompass a wider review of discriminatory policing by BHPD and expects the class of complainants to grow tenfold.“I don’t think Ben or I have had five minutes since the press conference that we haven’t received phone calls.I’ve been getting them since midnight,” Gage said.
Since Wednesday, he estimates the legal team has received at least 100 new complaints of racial profiling in traffic stops and other claims of discrimination from around the same period as Operation Safe Streets.Read more: Ex-officer faces more serious charge in Daunte Wright death FEMA changes policy that kept thousands of Black families from receiving disaster aid Grand jury indicts police and paramedics in 2019 death of Elijah McClain.