N.S. black man says police stopped him because he was driving new car

A Halifax-area man says he was stopped by police "because I'm a young black male driving a new car."

Jeremy White is sharing his story about being stopped by an RCMP officer just around the corner from the youth centre where he works.

Just before 1 p.m. on Feb. 27, White, 19, was driving his grandmother's grey Hyundai Elantra from a lunch program at Sycamore Lane Elementary School in Lower Sackville, N.S.

His destination was a Boys andGirls Club in Lower Sackville, where he works as a program leader.

The car has dark tinted windows and red and black bandannas hanging from the front mirror. White has large tattoos visible on his neck and hands.

"It's not right to profile somebody on how they look or how they dress," White said.

After White was pulled over, he said the officer immediately jumped out of his car, ordered him to turn off his car, not to move and to put his hands out the window.

"And so I'm like following all his orders, I'm respecting him, I'm asking him proper questions to see what is going on, what the situation is," White said.

"And he's just saying 'You're running from the police you were on your cell phone, you were speeding away.'

"And I really wasn't."

White says the officer also called for backup and three more officers arrived on the scene.

White's manager and supervisor had to show up with White's work schedule in hand to prove to the officers that he worked where he said he did.

"So I think for our team they found the situation and the aftermath a bit rattling, a bit uncomfortable," said Henk van Leeuwen, CEO of the Boys andGirls Clubs in the Halifax area.

"I think for Jeremy himself, what I've heard him describe is that he felt unsafe. He felt uncomfortable. So there was an impact."

In the end, White was issued two tickets for using a cell phone while driving and driving with a suspended licence.

Nova Scotia RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Jennifer Clarke said the officer involved in the traffic stop was sitting on Sackville Drive looking for drivers using cell phones.

"So he did note a car with a male driver who was alone in the vehicle and the driver was using a cell phone, so he attempted a traffic stop on that particular vehicle and the driver didn't stop immediately,'" Clarke said.

The police officer followed White's vehicle to a residential area for about two minutes before the vehicle came to a stop, Clarke said.

Shealso said when the officer had a conversation with the driver"the driver did not answer questions and didn't follow the commands of the police officer."

White said he has filed an official complaint against the RCMP alleging he was racially profiled. Clarke would not confirm whether such a complaint was on file.

A new report released earlier this week on racial profiling by Halifax-area police found black people were subject to street checks at a rate six times higher than white people in Halifax.

The independent report found that in Halifax, the odds of being stopped for a street check were highest for black men, followed by Arab males and black females.

White, who said he often is harassed by the police, is not surprised by these conclusions.

"I feel like it's true," he said. "We're automatically judged.

"We're either a drug dealer a rapper, an athlete or a pimp. And the thing is a lot of us are making money legally. We havejobs, we're working."