Couple allege racial bias in suit against police officer
Pair investigated in shoplifting say they spent thousands in attorney’s fees
It started with serial razor thefts at Walmart stores. The incidents, captured in 2017 on surveillance video at stores in Grants and Edgewood, showed a man and woman with a couple of children. The woman, pushing a stroller with an infant, can be seen hiding razors under a chador ,or traditional Muslim garment, court documents say.
In a notice sent out by Walmart warning of shoplifters, the company described the family as “Middle Eastern” and “Arab” and said they were traveling in a Toyota Sienna van.
Now, a couple living in Las Vegas, Nev., who previously lived in New Mexico are accusing a state police officer of racial profiling, saying his “negligent misidentification or … racial animosity” prompted an investigation into whether their family was connected to the Walmart thefts, even though they look nothing like the shoplifters in the videos and they don’t own a Toyota Sienna.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in state District Court on behalf of Jabeen Sultana and Shaik Nawaz against New Mexico State Police Officer Rene Ruiz, says the officer “developed ‘tunnel vision,’ ” pursing an investigation based on video evidence that “wholly undermined [his] allegation.”
Online court records don’t indicate criminal charges were filed against the couple, but the lawsuit claims the investigation forced them to spend thousands of dollars on attorney’s fees.
Nawaz and Sultana were born and raised in India before moving to the U.S., the lawsuit says, and neither has a criminal history. Sultana’s livelihood relies on her teaching license, the complaint adds.
Joe Romero, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he would not comment on the case until after the defendant had been served with suit.
Ruiz could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for New Mexico State Police did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the complaint, Ruiz had stopped Nawaz on a traffic violation Oct. 21, 2017. An image from dashboard camera footage of the incident, attached to the lawsuit, shows Nawaz standing by a dark-colored, midsize sedan.
Court records show Nawaz was cited at the time for failing to properly restrain a child in his vehicle.
Nearly a week later, Ruiz was asked to view surveillance video taken in July 2017 at the Walmart in Grants and video from the Edgewood store a day earlier.
He claimed he recognized the man in the videos as the man he had stopped and said he also recognized one of the children who had been with Nawaz during the traffic stop, according to the lawsuit.
Ruiz visited the Sultana and Nawaz in their home Dec. 20, 2017, the suit says, though it doesn’t provide an address. One previous address listed for Nawaz is a post office box in Thoreau.
The officer also conducted a follow-up interview with Ralph Martin, a Walmart employee who had interacted with the shoplifters, the suit says. It alleges Ruiz did not ask Martin to identify any of the shoplifters using a photo array.
Side-by-side images of the shoplifters and Nawaz’s family point out distinct differences: “Nawaz’s face is also less round than the male shoplifter’s face,” the suit says. “His skin coloration is different. He wears glasses. Hes ears are lower on his head in relation to his eyes. His shoulders are narrower.”
While the man captured shoplifting in the video was estimated to be 171 to 230 pounds, Nawaz’s driver’s license describes him as weighing 155 pounds, the suit says, and he “lacks the protruding or distended stomach” of the shoplifter.
The woman in the shoplifting video is described in the lawsuit as “lighter-skinned and thinner” than Sultana.
The couple are seeking unspecified damages in the case.