A group of North Carolina lawmakers has called for a U.S. Justice Department investigation into two deputies’ traffic stop of a bus carrying students from Shaw University, a historically Black university.
Paulette Dillard, president of the Raleigh, North Carolina, university, has alleged that students were improperly searched during a traffic stop in Spartanburg County.
“(T)his scene is reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s — armed police, interrogating innocent Black students, conducting searches without probable cause, and blood-thirsty dogs. It’s hard to imagine. Yet, it happened to the Shaw University community, and it is happening throughout this nation in alarming fashion. It must be stopped,” she said in a statement.
Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said in a news conference Monday everything the president said was untrue.
He said the traffic stop was one of 39 that day involving an effort known as Operation Rolling Thunder, begun because of the frequency of drugs being transported by buses. The effort resulted in 24 arrests and seizure of 102 pounds of marijuana, 2 pounds of meth and guns.
On Oct. 5, deputies pulled over an unmarked bus with tinted windows because the bus was weaving, Wright said.
“They could not see in the bus,” he said, adding that officers and the driver had a cordial conversation. They asked to inspect the cargo hold and the driver opened it, Wright said.
The one K-9 there was on a leash, and alerted on one bag, which was searched. Officers found a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. Officers searched two other bags and found only clothing and toiletries, a video released by the Sheriff’s Office showed.
None of the students was taken off the bus, Wright said.
The bus driver was given a warning.
A university representative said Dillard would have no further comment since an investigation is underway.
Five members of Congress — Deborah K. Ross, Alma S. Adams, David E. Price, G. K. Butterfield and Kathy Manning — wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week asking for his office to investigate.
“We write to urge you to conduct an expedited and independent review of the unfounded search of 18 Shaw University students earlier this month, as well as a pattern-of-practice investigation of the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted the search,” the letter said.
The chartered bus was taking the students to the Center for Financial Advancement Conference in Atlanta.
“Multiple deputies and drug-sniffing dogs searched the belongings of the students and staff in the vehicle,” the letter said. “No illicit materials were found and the students were left unnerved, confused, and humiliated.”
The letter said the Congress members were “deeply troubled by this unfounded search of Shaw students.”
The letter said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper,asked North Carolina Public Safety officials to express his concern to South Carolina law enforcement.
The letter said the Spartanburg Sheriff’s Office has “patterns of misconduct.” They cited a lawsuit filed in 2014 filed by a Black former detention officer who said people in the department used racial slurs and provided him with inadequate training compared with what white officers had.
The officer Brian Blalock was fired in 2012 after a physical confrontation with an inmate. The parties settled that suit, but the details were not released.
The Congress members also cited Wright saying in 2020, “We had every opportunity to kill two Black men and we did not do it,” while defending how deputies handled two arrests.
“We believe transparency and accountability are necessary for ensuring justice for the Shaw students directly involved in the incident, as well as the larger Shaw and Raleigh communities, the letter said.
Wright said in the news conference he does not tolerate racism and wishes it would die “an ugly, cruel death.”
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, calling Dillard’s statement “libelous and slanderous.”
Dillard said she has asked the university’s general counsel to investigate whether there is any recourse the school could take about the way students were treated.
A university spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment on Wright’s press conference. He was joined by Cherokee County Sheriff Steve Mueller at the press conference, who agreed the officers did nothing wrong.
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