SUFFOLK
A business owner and rapper has publicly accused two police officers of racially profiling him and illegally searching his vehicle on Hunter Street last week.
Terry Towns, who goes by X-man X-con, recently posted a six-minute Facebook video of one of the officers going through his SUV. In the video, a second officer is shown keeping Towns away from the car during the search.
Towns, 36, is shown telling the officers their search is illegal and that he's "too legit to quit."
"They bring in the force because I'm a black man in America in a Mercedes-Benz," Towns says.
Suffolk Police spokeswoman Debbie George confirmed Thursday afternoon that Towns had filed a formal complaint and that an internal investigation is being conducted.
Towns said he was in the area to pick up a CD for GMAAT Records, a label he owns. When someone came out to bring him the CD, police showed up, he said.
According to Towns, the officers said they stopped because they heard loud music. Later, he said, they said they smelled marijuana in Towns' SUV.
"I don't want you to search my truck," Towns said he told them. "I'm not saying this because I have something in my truck, but I feel like I'm being violated."
In the video, the officers look through Towns' trunk, front and back seats, and several documents.
"I don't know why you're messing with all my paperwork," Towns says in the video. "There's not weed in that paper."
In an email, George provided the department's account of what happened.
George said the officers were in the Hunter Street area when they saw one man in a group begin to run from them. The officers tried to find the man, but eventually returned back to where the group had been. Only two people, one of them Towns, remained, she wrote.
George said the officers "engaged them in conversation and noted the strong smell of what he believed to be recently smoked marijuana. The smell was coming from one subject and from a vehicle belonging to the videographer."
George said Towns gave officers consent to search him - a claim Towns disputes.
Officers then searched Towns' vehicle, using the smell of marijuana as probable cause. George said officers do not have to get a search warrant to inspect a vehicle if probable cause has been established.
Officers did not find any contraband during their searches, George wrote.
Sarah Hutchins, (757) 222-5210, [email protected]
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