Class action sought in Buffalo Police racial profiling lawsuit [Video]

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — For years, minority residents of Buffalo have spoken out about discriminatory police stops, which they say have often resulted in multiple tickets, sometimes for the same infraction.

In addition, Buffalo Police Department data showed that minority drivers were about three times more likely to be stopped than white drivers, based on a News 4 Investigates analysis published in 2022.

In 2018, nine members of Black Love Resists in the Rust, a Buffalo organization that focuses on alternatives to policing to reduce harm to minorities, made these allegations in a federal civil rights lawsuit.

On Wednesday, attorneys for the organization said that since filing the lawsuit, they’ve identified about 6,000 additional minority drivers who were stopped by police at checkpoints and cited for multiple tinted window tickets.

The attorneys are now seeking class action certification to represent all minority drivers they can identify who were impacted by “unconstitutional and discriminatory practices of the Buffalo …