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| Rashad James |
In Harford County, Md., the local sheriff’s office finds itself the subject of a complaint after one of its deputies detained a black attorney, insisting that he was impersonating a lawyer.
The complaint was filed by Rashad James, a legal aid attorney, who was at Harford County District Court on March 6 to expunge a client’s record. His client wasn’t at the courthouse that day, reports WBAL TV.
After successfully arguing for the expungement, a deputy stopped James in the courtroom and questioned whether he was really a lawyer or just impersonating one.
As James told WBAL-TV, the officer referred to him by his client’s name. After telling the deputy that he was, in fact, the client’s lawyer, the officer then asked James for ID, which James provided.
Now, that should have been the end of the story, right? But the deputy wasn’t convinced, asking James for further proof he was actually an attorney—despite just seeing him do his job in the courtroom.
James didn’t have his state bar card or business cards on him, bringing the deputy to an important crossroads: take James at his word or escalate the situation.
You know which path the deputy chose.
According to a statement by James’ attorneys, the deputy took James to an interview room where he detained the young lawyer for about 10 minutes. Only after James had the cop call his supervisor was he allowed to leave.
Again—because this can’t be repeated enough—this was after the deputy saw a judge accepting, on the record, that James was an attorney and his client was absent, as James’ attorney Chelsea Crawford pointed out during an on-camera interview.
In a written statement, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler told WBAL TV that James’ complaint was forwarded to his department’s Office of Professional Standards for “a complete and thorough investigation.”
Andrew D. Freeman, who is also representing James, said, "If Mr. James were white, the officer would not have doubted that Mr. James was an attorney, would not have questioned his identity, and certainly would not have detained Mr. James after seeing his driver’s license. There is no plausible explanation other than racial bias.”
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