Sheriffs Dismiss HBCU President's Racism Allegation As 'Just False' Following Traffic Stop
Officers say they did nothing wrong while stopping a busload of people from a historically Black college or university (HBCU).
The entire situation began unfolding back on Oct. 5 after a bus of 18 students and 2 staff advisors from Shaw University — an HBCU in Raleigh, North Carolina — was pulled over while en route to the Center for Financial Advancement Conference in Atlanta.
The traffic stop went down in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, and it involved “[m]ultiple sheriff deputies and drug-sniffing dogs search[ing] the suitcases of the students and staff located in the luggage racks beneath the bus,” according to a statement made by Dr. Paulette Dillard, the president of Shaw University.
“In a word, I am ‘outraged.’ This behavior of targeting Black students is unacceptable and will not be ignored nor tolerated. Had the students been White, I doubt this detention and search would have occurred,” she noted.
Dillard went on to say that the entire matter “is reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s — armed police, interrogating innocent Black students, conducting searches without probable cause, and blood-thirsty dogs.”
“The action taken by South Carolina Law Enforcement in Spartanburg County was unfair and unjust. I firmly believe had the bus been occupied by White students, they would not have been detained,” she reiterated in the Oct. 10 statement.
Now, authorities are responding to Dillard’s claims and sharing their side of the story.
During a press conference on Monday, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright said that Dillard’s accusations are “just false” and shed further light on the ordeal, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
Wright shared that the stop occurred because the bus was allegedly swerving, and he clarified that none of the occupants were asked to leave the bus at any point.
He also said that the stop was part of an anti-drug campaign called “Operation Rolling Thunder” and noted that the “Greyhound-like bus” was unmarked and had tinted windows that obscured officers’ view of the occupants, suggesting that they didn’t even know the riders were Black.
“I wish racism would die the ugly, cruel death it deserves,” Wright said. “If anything we’re ever doing is racist, I want to know it, I want to fix it and I want to never let it happen again. But this case right here has absolutely nothing to do with racism.”
Steve Mueller, a sheriff in Cherokee County, went on to refer to the area the bus was stopped at as a “deadly corridor” and said that the deputies were only doing their job, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
“If my guys see a bus weaving in their lane, and they fail to stop it to check that driver to make sure they’re not too sleepy, then we could have a busload of Shaw students that was involved in a tragic traffic fatality,” Mueller noted.
This situation comes nearly 6 months after the women’s lacrosse team at Delaware State University (DSU) accused Georgia deputies of racial profiling during a traffic stop, as Blavity previously reported.
Similarly, back in late May, Blavity reported that charges were dismissed against Atlanta police officers who tased two HBCU students during a 2020 traffic stop.
What do you think about the situation between Shaw University and the South Carolina sheriffs?
