A SWAT team surrounded a black gym owner at his business. No charges came. Now he's suing.

DETROIT — A black gym owner in Detroit said racial profiling led police to falsely accuse him of robbing a bank more than a year ago and that he's still fighting to restore his reputation.

On Friday, Mike Fox's lawyers filed a lawsuit in county circuit court demanding damages from police and the public safety director of a Detroit suburb for sending a SWAT team to his fitness studio to make the arrest, then jailing him for 48 hours.

Yet a lawyer for the suburb of Grosse Pointe Woods said Fox must remain "a person of interest" because the robbery was never solved, even though law-enforcement experts in facial identification could not confirm him as the robber.

Fox said he was standing at the counter of his workout studio, Detroit Thrive, in April 2018 when stunned clients watched officers surround him in riot gear while brandishing weapons and leading a German shepherd police dog, as seen in surveillance video. (The dog bit him in the leg, a minor injury, Fox said.)

A day earlier, the Chemical Bank branch in Grosse Pointe Woods had been robbed.

Shortly after, the public safety department in the upscale Detroit suburb — whose residents are 89.6 % white and 4.9% black, according to the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments — released a description of the suspect: “African-American male, 45-50 years of age, approx. 6(-foot) tall and 220-230 lbs.”

Fox is 44 years old, 5-foot-11 and 260 pounds.

After images of the robbery suspect from the bank's video system went out with the police description, police said a Facebook tipster suggested the suspect might be the owner of Detroit Thrive.

But Fox and his lawyers said he clearly isn’t the man in the photos.

Grosse Pointe Woods police still jailed him for two days in April last year. They also ransacked Fox’s home in Harper Woods, where he lives with his wife and their 11-year-old son.

After 48 hours, police released him without filing charges. Now, "it's been more than a year and they still refuse to clear my name,” Fox said.

Fox said he lost 20% of his clients when word of his arrest spread through Facebook and other social networks.

A gym owner tries to clear his name

Last summer, the gym owner hired lawyers who said they contacted a Grosse Pointe Woods detective, suggesting Michigan State Police's facial-recognition software could be used to confirm that Fox did not commit the robbery.

Grosse Pointe Woods declined to do so, the lawyers said.

The Grosse Pointe Woods director of public safety referred a reporter's calls to Detroit-area lawyer Gus Morris, who specializes in defending police departments.

Fox’s lawsuit demands cash compensation for five counts: assault, for the arrest; battery, for the dog bite; false imprisonment, for the two days in jail; defamation of Fox’s character — first labeling him a suspect, then continuing ever since to call him a "person of interest"; and finally, false light — a legal term for causing serious damage to someone's reputation.

For each count, Fox's lawsuit asks for "a judgment in excess of $25,000" plus court costs and attorney fees.

Arrested over a parking ticket

Morris, who now is expected to defend Grosse Pointe Woods in court, said he's unsure what would satisfy the other side.

"I sat in his attorneys' office for two hours and they never did get around to specifying a dollar amount" to settle Fox's grievances, so "I really don't know what they want," Morris said.

But why won't the suburb clear Fox's name? Why keep calling him a "person of interest"?

"This is a crime that hasn't been solved," Morris said.

"There's certainly no evidence now to support arresting him. But what if, hypothetically, we were to stand up and say he wan't involved? And then, the investigators were to find new evidence that would make him a suspect?"

Despite perpetuating the hint that Fox might still be somehow linked to the robbery on April 18, 2018, Morris said that Grosse Pointe Woods police lacked probable cause even from the outset when, a day after the robbery, they hauled Fox to jail.

"The arrest was made on a separate warrant, so they could bring him in and question him about the robbery," Morris said. "Police do that all the time."

The basis of that separate warrant? An unpaid parking ticket.

The ticket was for a violation Fox incurred when he illegally parked overnight in front of his own house, then failed to pay, and late fees accrued. Shortly after Fox was arrested, his wife paid the $130 debt, he said.

A robber's strange ear offers a clue

At the time, Grosse Pointe Woods submitted photos of Fox alongside surveillance images of the robber to analysts at the Detroit Police Department and Michigan State Police, Morris said.

The bank's surveillance photo reveals something unusual about the man at the teller's window demanding money, as a plastic surgeon has told Fox's lawyers: He has a strange-looking ear, a condition that doctors call a lop ear deformity. Fox has normal ears.

"They could not say it was the same person," Morris said.

Fox was released after two days in the police lockup — far too long, his lawyers argue.

"Remember, the pretext for taking him in was an unpaid parking ticket," said attorney Peter Alle, who is representing Fox.

Before his arrest, Fox actively coached youth football, baseball and lacrosse teams, he said, with trophies of appreciation on display at his business.

All that went on hold, and as word of his arrest spread, he lost clients.

The loss of Fox's standing in the community is what "really hurts," said Gerald Evelyn, another lawyer handling his case.

Fox is one more example in the long history of white people falsely accusing black people in criminal cases, sometimes intentionally, but often through sheer mistakes in identity, Evelyn said.

"We just asked them to clear his name, Evelyn said, adding: "They know he's not the guy."

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: A SWAT team surrounded a black gym owner at his business. No charges came. Now he's suing.