Alquez Griffin, a 27-year-old Black man from Miami, had just clocked out from his warehouse job with a couple of friends late one night last year when police pulled them over under questionable circumstances – arresting them for possessing “burglary tools” that turned out to be the tools they used for work.
Hialeah police tried to justify the traffic stop by claiming Griffin had been swerving between lanes while the occupants in the car kept looking back at the cop car behind them.
Police reports claim the cops smelled weed and that Griffin and the backseat passenger were “reaching” for something, making police fear for their lives, which was why a multitude of cops showed up in unmarked cars, ordering the men out at gunpoint.
But the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office dismissed all felony charges against the men this month because the body camera footage from the cops contradicted their police reports, said Roderick Vereen, the Miami attorney preparing a lawsuit against the Hialeah Police Department…