Photo: Getty Images
A Texas woman is accusing police of racial profiling after she was ticketed for walking on the wrong side of the road.
According to KFDM, Akia Townes was walking along Madison Boulevard in Groves, Texas while trying to retrieve her escaped dog when she was stopped by police.
"Two cops stopped me. They walked out with their hands on their guns, and then they asked me to see my ID," Townes said.
Townes said she was walking on the right side of the road with traffic just feet away from her home before her confrontation with police. Her husband, Brad, recorded the police encounter, which the couple described as an "excessive show of power."
"She was not walking on this side of the road," police said, to which Brad questioned, "What does it matter?"
The officer responded, "It's a traffic violation."
"No, it's not," Brad said.
According to the Texas Transportation Code, pedestrians are required to walk on the left side of the road facing oncoming traffic when there is no sidewalk.
The situation between the couple and police escalated before officers called for backup over the walking debacle. Four officers responded to the scene, two of which were in field training, Groves PD said.
"It's just very an excessive force of power for me just trying to go and find my dog," Akia Townes said. "You could have easily said 'hey ma'am,' and I could have explained to you what I was trying to do, but then you threatened my husband and threatened me to go to jail."
The couple retained an attorney to fight the ticket, alleging that it was an abuse of power for a minor situation and a case of racial profiling.
"I feel like they looked and saw an easy target, and nobody was going to come and defend, and nobody was going to come help," Brad said.
In a statement, Groves City Marshal Chris Robin said the department doesn't tolerate racism.
"We've seen so many different minor ordinance violations turn into something tragic, and we don't want that to occur. We want to be able to make a difference in making our community safer," Robin said.
Attorney Langston Adams explained that Townes' husband, who is white, wasn't ticketed for the incident while Akia, who is Black, was.
"It's not a question of whether she was breaking the law," Adams said. "We believe it's selective enforcement and racial profiling. Why didn't the husband get a ticket? He was also walking on the wrong side of the road, and he's white. I believe they used her walking on the wrong side of the road as a pretext to stop her."
Watch video of the incident here.
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