A judge has agreed to review a request by a Black El Segundo resident to order the city to produce 12 complaints of racial profiling against city police officers that occurred both before and after he says he was himself a victim of the practice in 2021.
Keith Puckett alleges in his Torrance Superior Court lawsuit that the ESPD has a custom, pattern, and/or practice of racially profiling Black people. Puckett contends that the department racially profiled him twice.
On Friday, Judge Gary Tanaka said he will review the relevant records in chambers on May 4 and then decide which records, if any, should be turned over to Puckett’s attorneys. The judge had heard arguments on March 16 and then took the issues under submission.
The city has denied Puckett’s allegations and cited multiple defenses, stating in earlier court papers that ESPD officers acted objectively reasonable under the circumstances and that probable cause existed for the investigation of Puckett “throughout the incidents and events.”
Tanaka previously denied a motion by the South Bay community to dismiss the case, finding that the plaintiff had provided enough facts for the case to proceed. According to the judge’s ruling, six armed police officers confronted plaintiff in the middle of the night at his home in January 2021 after observing a friend of Puckett, who also is Black.
Puckett and the friend were “detained for a period of time while the officers attempted to sort out the situation,” the judge wrote, adding, “Neither the plaintiff nor his friend had done anything wrong.”
Two months later, Puckett was pulled over while driving for “purportedly not having illumination around his rear license plate when the illumination was working perfectly,” the judge wrote, adding that Puckett subsequently tried to get a proper explanation for the stop from the city “with no success.”
Puckett filed his lawsuit in June 2024. His court papers state that Racial and Identity Profiling Act data show that although Black people make up less than 5% of El Segundo’s population, more than 20% of all stops in El Segundo are of Black people.
The dozen complaints Puckett seeks are germane to the plaintiff’s allegations that the city has a pattern and practice of discriminating against Black people, according to his lawyers’ court papers.