A Black man arrested inside a comedy club for “Laughing While Black” has filed a lawsuit against the Missouri cops who arrested him and his girlfriend, accusing the cops of racial profiling.
Steve Young, who is also a police accountability activist, was arrested along with his activist girlfriend, Winifred L. Jamieson, who is white, and also listed as a plaintiff. Both are founders of the Kansas City Law Enforcement Accountability Project, which describes itself on its website as “holding police accountable, and advocating for victims of police violence since 2021.”
But it was Young’s race that led to the arrest in the first place, according to the federal lawsuit filed on June 18 that accuses Kansas City police officers B. Dougherty and J. Comfort of violating their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit filed by Kansas City attorney Arthur A. Benson II also claims Dougherty has a history of racial profiling.
Young’s race – Black – and Jamieson’s association and/or affiliation with him was a motivating factor in Dougherty’s decision to arrest them; there was a discriminatory purpose to their arrest.
On information and belief, Dougherty has intentionally and purposefully targeted, arrested, and charged a disproportionate number of Blacks and their associates, affiliates, or advocates, thereby disproportionately applying neutral laws to a specific class of people, i.e., Blacks and their associates, affiliates, or advocates.
The Arrest
The incident took place on March 22, 2022, at the Kansas City Music Hall during a set by stand-up comedian Hasan Minhaj, an American of Indian descent who spent four years working as a correspondent for “The Daily Show.”
Young and Jamieson sat behind a white woman and soon they were laughing and clapping along with the rest of the audience.
But the white woman sitting in front of them turned around and looked directly at Young, telling him to be quiet, the claim states.
Young ignored her demands and continued watching the show, laughing along with the rest of the audience, but the white woman became increasingly annoyed and even stood up at one point to face him, telling him to stop laughing, the couple alleges.
Young responded by telling her to stop harassing him and other members of the audience — who were also getting annoyed by the woman — “offered words of support” to the couple, the claim states.
The white woman then complained to the security guards working that evening, who called Kansas City police. Officers Dougherty and Comfort showed up and began questioning the couple, disrupting the show to the point where Minjal left the stage, informing the audience he would return once that situation was resolved.
Without interviewing witnesses to gain a full perspective of the situation, the cops arrested the couple on a charge of disorderly conduct, which is often a “contempt of cop” charge used against citizens who annoy officers when they can’t find an actual crime that the subjects have committed.
If anybody should have been charged with disorderly conduct, it should have been the white woman complaining about the couple, the claim states under the subtitle, “Consequences of Laughing While Black? Arrest, Prosecution, and Damages”:
At no time had there been any disorderly conduct by Young and Jamieson and they were not disruptive, or disturbing the peace of anyone.
To the extent there was any disturbance, it was caused by the woman seated in front of Young and Jamieson.
Neither Dougherty nor any of the other officers who responded conducted an investigation to determine whether or not an ordinance violation had even occurred. Although there was exculpatory evidence reasonably available at hand – Young, Jamieson, and other patrons seated nearby who were witnesses to what had transpired could have been interviewed before Young and Jamieson were arrested – Dougherty and the other officers arrested Young and Jamieson – solely on the basis of inherently unreliable hearsay not attributable to other law enforcement officers – without doing even that minimal investigation.
Had Dougherty and the other officers conducted such a minimal investigation and had they determined that it was the woman seated in front of Young and Jamieson who was the disorderly party who had caused the disturbance, Young and Jamieson would not have been arrested, charged, and prosecuted.
Lengthy Legal Ordeal
It took more than two years and thousands of dollars in attorney fees before the charges were dismissed against the couple in September 2024.
The lawsuit accuses the cops of violating the couple’s Fourth and 14th Amendment rights as well as malicious prosecution.
The lawsuit also accuses the cops of violating 42 U.S. Code § 1981 that is titled Equal Rights Under the Law and states the following:
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
The contract in question was between the couple and the comedian, they assert in their claim:
The arrest of Young and Jamieson by state actors Dougherty and Comfort on the basis of race interfered with the enforcement of the contract and with their anticipated benefit of the purchase contract, i.e., that they would be allowed to watch the show in its entirety.
Additionally, because of their arrest – state action – by Dougherty and Comfort on the basis of race, Young and Jamieson were also deprived of the full and equal benefit of all laws for the security of persons that were enjoyed by the white woman in the row in front of them in that she complained about their behavior and the police intervened on her behalf and not on behalf of Young and Jamieson.
Judging by previous articles reported by Atlanta Black Star over the years, including the time Kansas City police body slammed a Black man for recording police in public and the time they shot and killed an unarmed Black man, resulting in a $5 million settlement, it is not surprising they would arrest the Black man instead of the white woman who started the confrontation.
It was, in fact, Young who recorded the cop body slamming the Black man back in 2022, but the recent lawsuit does not state that the plaintiffs claim he was retaliated against for his activism.
