Houston Police Department
NEW ORLEANS - The City of Houston has defeated a federal lawsuit's claims that its police racially profile Black drivers, which in turns puts pedestrians at risk during high-speed chases.
The estates of three Black men who died as a result of being struck by vehicles in chases sued Houston in 2022 but ran into trouble when Judge Kenneth Hoyt tossed their due process claims.
However, he found the plaintiffs had standing to assert equal protection claims, which was appealed by Houston to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That court on July 15 dismissed that final federal claim.
"Each decedent here undoubtedly suffered an injury - all tragically died," Judge Kurt Engelhardt wrote.
"But the question is not whether they suffered an injury. Instead we must ask whether their injuries are the sort that the Equal Protection Clause protects against.
"Their allegation that the HPD racially profiled Black neighborhoods, leading to more high-speed chases in those neighborhoods, is a generalized grievance."
Michael Jackson was struck and killed by a police car, while Carl Wiley, Jr. and Rashad Henderson were hit by fleeing suspects. The accidents occurred in predominately Black communities, leading to attorneys at Doyle Dennis alleging racial profiling is to blame.
HPD has a policy of seeking out Black drivers that leads to more high-speed chases in Black neighborhoods, they said. But the plaintiffs failed to show how their deaths in separate accidents violated the Equal Protection Clause.
"Plaintiffs do not allege that Houston treated the decedents differently than similarly situated individuals because of their race," Engelhardt wrote.
"The decedents were struck and killed not because of the color of their skin, but because they were unfortunately and coincidentally present at places of unknown sudden risk."
White individuals standing in the same places would have "suffered the same fate," he added.
Remaining is a state-law negligence claim over which the district court now has no jurisdiction, because all federal claims have been denied. Hoyt had ruled Houston wasn't entitled to governmental immunity on the negligence claim but will now have to reassess.
