One of two traffic charges dropped following racial profiling claim

Erica D. Johnson

Monday, Feb. 16, 2004 | 10:04 a.m.

A District Court judge on Friday dismissed one of the traffic citations issued to a woman who claims she was a victim of racial profiling by North Las Vegas Police.

Dorthy Ukaegbu took her case to court after a North Las Vegas officer cited her for failing to stop at a red light and failure to stop for an emergency vehicle in April. She alleged the officer had followed her and pulled her over because she is a black woman.

Ukaegbu appealed the case to the District Court level after a Municipal Court judge let the charges stand.

District Judge John McGroarty said there was not sufficient evidence to warrant the charge of failure to stop for an emergency vehicle, which carries a $300 fine. He determined that Ukaegbu did, however, run the red light. He said that charge, which carries a $100 fine, would stand.

Ukaegbu on Friday turned down a deal offered by Deputy City Attorney Ken Long. Long offered to make the citations nonmoving violations, which would reduce the fines to $75 each and would not affect Ukaegbu's insurance rates. But Ukaegbu refused.

"It's a matter of principal," she said. "I feel that I am not guilty."

McGroarty's ruling came after a brief bench trial in which Ukaegbu, an anthropology instructor at the Community College of Southern Nevada, represented herself.

Officer William Silva, the single witness in the case, testified that he pulled Ukaegbu over after she ran a red light near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue. Silva said he was not aware of the driver's race or ethnicity.

Silva, a motorcycle officer, said he put on his flashing lights and sirens, but Ukaegbu refused to pull over and yelled at him out of her window instead.

"She continued to argue about why I had stopped her," he said. "She was hostile towards me."

Silva said Ukaegbu pulled over only after he got off his motorcycle in the middle of traffic and demanded that she move to the right side of the road.

But Ukaegbu denied that was the case. She said she was more than three quarters of the way through the intersection when the light turned red. She said she tried to veer to the right as soon as she heard the officer's sirens, but heavy traffic initially prevented her from doing so.

Ukaegbu said the officer admitted that he followed her and that he also commented on her thick Nigerian accent. She denied that she ever yelled at the officer or was hostile.

"I didn't know why he stopped me because as far as I was concerned, I didn't do anything wrong," she said.

Long said the exchange between Silva and Ukaegbu was tape-recorded and that Silva's lieutenant listened to the tape and cleared the officer of any wrongdoing. He said the tape was erased because Ukaegbu did not file a complaint with the Internal Affairs Department within 30 days.

"I do feel this is a waste of judicial recourses," Long said of the bench trial.