A Black attorney was racially profiled and arrested after he went to court, on his day off, wearing street clothes.
Jaaye Person-Lynn entered the courtroom and tried to make his way to the clerk, but a deputy motioned him to the bailiff. Before he could say anything the bailiff tells him only attorneys can go past a certain area in the courtroom.
He tells the bailiff that he is an attorney, and he attempts to pull his bar card from his wallet in his back pocket, but before he gets to his wallet a deputy grabs his arm and pushes him.
The deputies push him out of the courtroom into the vestibule area where he gives them a case number and tells them he’s coming after them with everything he learned in law school.
One of the deputies took Person-Lynn’s words as a threat and started tazing him, he also said they injured his arms. Person-Lynn maintains that he did not resist at all.
Person-Lynn was then arrested and booked. An all-white jury found him guilty on one of the nine charges he was convicted of, delaying or obstructing a peace officer. He was sentenced to one year of probation on Friday.
The incident took place in a San Bernardino courtroom in 2019.
Jaaye Person-Lynn plans to stick to his word and appeal, on the grounds that the incident was racially motivated and the officers used excessive force.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump made a statement about the incident on Monday.
He was treated w/ implicit bias too often experienced by Black attorneys. Why is it so hard for some ppl to believe that Black ppl can be lawyers or doctors?
View the video inside attorney Ben Crump’s tweet below:
See Person-Lynn give his full account of the incident in the video below:
Hopefully Jaye Person-Lynn wins his appeal, and he can put this nonsense behind him.
Source: TMZ
