Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[thepennyking]

Two men are suing two Detroit police officers who arrested them last year, saying they were falsely accused of being terrorists based on ethnic profiling.

The lawsuit says the men were accused of videotaping the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest U.S.-Canada border crossing, though the men claim they never filmed there. A video camera was seized during their arrest last April.

Mohamed Elmathil and Hazaa Shahit, both of Dearborn, were never charged with any crime. Police said the arrests were justified because the officers thought they had witnessed suspicious activity.

Police found fireworks in Elmathil's car, and initially thought they were sticks of dynamite. The lawsuit says the men were questioned for hours about whether they were members of al-Qaida.

"My clients were subject to ethnic profiling," their attorney, Michael Cafferty, told the Detroit Free Press for a Friday story. "They haven't even gotten the video camera back. The whole thing is ridiculous."

Elmathil is a U.S. citizen originally from Yemen and Shahit was born in the Detroit area, Cafferty said.

The lawsuit against Officers Aric Tosqui and Michael Parish was filed Monday in Wayne County Circuit Court. It seeks an undetermined sum of money and alleges ethnic intimidation, defamation of character, false imprisonment and civil rights violations.

Tosqui declined to comment Thursday, and Parish could not be reached for comment. The police department did not return a message seeking further comment Friday morning.

The Ambassador Bridge has about 10 million vehicle crossings every year and handles a quarter of all trade traffic between the United States and Canada.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-bridge-arrests,0,3184182.story?coll=ny-nationa...