North Carolina cops who violently arrested a Black man and woman for smoking a legal hemp cigarette at a bus stop in 2023 had no probable cause – and officials had told them that for years.
Like many law enforcement agencies across the country, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has a long history of arresting Black people for low-level marijuana offenses while ignoring white people who consume marijuana at similar rates.
So despite changes in the law, officers evidently could not resist brutalizing the pair over the “odor of marijuana” in an incident captured on bodycam video that went viral.
Earlier this week, Anthony Lee, the Black man arrested that day, filed a federal lawsuit against the Charlotte-Mecklenburg officers who arrested him…