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VIA:CHRON.COM

By PEGGY O’HARE

Pearland police have opened an internal affairs investigation into claims that one of its officers engaged in racial profiling when he arrested a black pastor’s daughter and her fiance, then rousted the pastor and other family members out of bed at their Shadow Creek Ranch home last week to determine whether they were wanted on arrest warrants.

Community activist Quanell X said the officer had no probable cause to go onto pastor Milton Russaw’s property or to confront the daughter’s boyfriend, who was sitting in a car parked in the family’s driveway in the 2200 block of Rising Bay Lane on Dec. 1. But Pearland police said the fiance drew the officer’s attention because he was “hunched down” in the car and because a number of vehicle break-ins and home burglaries have occurred in the area.

“We believe the Pearland Police Department acted unbecoming of law enforcement officers, and we also believe this is a case of racial profiling of an African-American family living in a community that is majority white,” Quanell X said as Russaw and several other black pastors stood with him Thursday.

Gave police false name

Lt. Onesimo Lopez, a spokesman for the Pearland police, said the department takes such allegations seriously and will thoroughly investigate them. The officer at the center of the Russaw family’s complaint remains on active duty, Lopez said.

The officer was patrolling the Shadow Creek Ranch subdivision when he saw a black man hunched down inside Russaw’s daughter’s car in the family’s driveway around 8:40 a.m. The officer walked up and asked for the man’s name. Police accused the fiance, later identified as Kevin Lavigne, 39, of falsely identifying himself by giving an incorrect name and birth date.

Police also accused the pastor’s daughter, Myyeshia Frederick, 28, of helping to conceal her fiance’s identity.

Lavigne later admitted to giving a false name because he was wanted on five outstanding traffic warrants in Pearland, and Frederick said she knew about the warrants, police said. Lavigne was charged with failure to identify as a fugitive, while Frederick was charged with hindering apprehension.

Quanell X said the officer then followed Frederick’s 11-year-old crying daughter into the family’s house, ordering Russaw and everyone in his family out of bed and to show identification to check if they were wanted on arrest warrants. The officer also made Russaw show him a utility bill to prove that he lived there, the activist said.

Demanded ID from others

“When I made it out of my bed and opened my bedroom door, I’m greeted by a Pearland police officer. Immediately, my reaction was, ‘What are you doing in my house?’ ” Russaw said Thursday.

The officer demanded identification from Russaw and his other two daughters. “He said, ‘I’m a police officer, I can talk to anybody I want to talk to.’ ”

Lopez said the officer was trying to make sure the 11-year-old would be left in the care of a responsible adult since her mother was being taken to jail.

Russaw, pastor of Christian Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Houston, later met with internal affairs investigators at his home for three hours.