LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE 3)– A teenager is suing the Louisville Metro Police Department over a controversial traffic stop that was caught on an officer’s body-cam.
Footage from August 2018 shows a cooperative 18-year-old Tae-Ahn Lea pulled from his car in west Louisville.
Without his consent, he was patted down and handcuffed while police searched his car.
They found nothing illegal and police told Lea’s mother he made too wide of a turn.
An attorney says LMPD’s “people, places, narcotics” strategy amounts the incident to nothing more than illegal stop and frisk.
The five officers involved in the stop are all named in the lawsuit, along with Chief Steve Conrad and ninth division Major William Hibbs.
Since the traffic stop, Conrad announced policy changes that will take effect Aug. 1 that are meant to reduce implicit bias.
“There were things in place before the ninth mobile was instructed to engage in these practices,” said Lonita Baker, Lea’s attorney. “I’m not sure that any policy change is really going to have an impact we have to change the thought processes and when I say that its how can we work together.”
Prosecutors dismissed Lea’s traffic citation.
LMPD says they do not comment on pending litigation.
