A Florida soldier was shocked to find the North Miami Beach police department were using her brother’s mug shot for target practice, along with the pictures of five other black men.
The woman, Sgt. Valerie Deant, visited the Medley Range, the police department’s shooting range, to undertake weapons qualifications training when she spotted what the police officers had been using for a target – a mug shot of her brother Woody, from an arrest when he was 18 years old. The five other targets were also mugshots of black men.
The North Miami police chief, J. Scott Dennis, has denied there was racial profiling at play, but admitted his officers could have displayed better judgment. He told NBC Miami: “Our policies were not violated, there is no discipline that is forthcoming for the individuals regarding this.”
Mr. Dennis said the police department regularly use arrays of images of people, of different races, who look similar, for facial recognition exercises.
“We utilise an array of pictures – we will have six pictures of people that look very similar. We have an array of black males, we have an array of white and Hispanic males,” he said.
Mr Dennis did however say that he was concerned that the image of an individual from the local area had been used.
There remains much tension in the United States regarding the relationship between the black community and the police, following the deaths of unarmed black men Eric Garner and Michael Brown at the hands of white police officers.
“The picture actually has bullet holes – one in my forehead, one in my eye. I was speechless,” said Woody Deant.
Deant was arrested and imprisoned for four years for drag racing in 2000, following the deaths of two people at a drag racing incident. He said he was offended his image was used in this manner today.
“Now I’m being used as a target and I’m not even living that life according to how they’re portraying me as. I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a career man, I work nine to five,” Mr Deant said.
“This can create a very dangerous situation. It has been ingrained in your subconscious. What does that mean for when someone comes across Woody or another person on the street and their decision making process on using deadly force or not?” said Andell Brown, Mr Deant’s attorney.
Valerie Deant said using images of her brother, or other real people, will create an image of these people as criminals in police officers’ minds.
“They’re seeing them as criminals even get a chance to (say) ‘I surrender’,” she said.
