Purple Heart recipient Rafique Khan said he was pulled over while driving his BMW in Brooklyn for no stated reason. Then, he was arrested for carrying a legal gun.
He believes he was pulled over and charged because he’s black. [Maybe black while armed?]
“There was no probable cause to stop [Khan] other than he was a person of color operating an expensive late model vehicle…” said the suit, filed in Brooklyn Federal Court by his lawyer, Cory Morris, on May 21. A similar suit was filed by Morris on June 14 in the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.
“To be honest, I’m disappointed,” Khan, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, told the Daily News in an interview.
“I never thought I would serve and come home to be treated in this manner. I love my country. I wasn’t born here, but what better way to pay your country than to serve? I did it honorably.
“I could understand if I was arguing or trying to fight, being belligerent — but it was nothing like that.”
The 40-year-old retired US Army veteran now works as an armed federal environment protection specialist out of Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. Khan got a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for rescuing fellow soldiers trapped in the wreckage caused by a suicide truck bomb that killed two Americans and badly injured some three dozen troops in Afghanistan in 2012.
No one told him why he was pulled over. He had his permit and military ID but was arrested anyway. The police might have thought he couldn’t carry his gun off-duty.
We couldn’t get the police officer’s version of events.
He has filed a federal lawsuit alleging discrimination, wrongful arrest, and a denial of the Second Amendment right to carry a firearm.
inb4 NYC argues “the existence of these racist historical gun laws means we’re allowed to do that” https://t.co/8pZwct1xAB
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 27, 2024
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