LOGAN HEIGHTS - In the same park where she says her son was stopped and frisked Jamie Wilson blasted San Diego police during a news conference Wednesday.
“When our children can't walk down the street to a trolley station or go hang out at the park without fitting the description or looking suspicious there's a problem.”
Wilson is a co-plaintiff with her teenage son in a new lawsuit filed by the ACLU on their behalf against the San Diego Police Department.
Her 16-year old was one of 4 teens stopped while walking through Memorial Park last March.
She says he was handcuffed, searched and detained, The ACLU says told they'd be released only if they provided a sample of their DNA though they'd committed no crime.
“This is drag net surveillance based on your child's spit of an entire community,” said ACLU Attorney Bardis Vakili.
The ACLU is accusing SDPD of skirting California law restricting DNA collection from juveniles by allowing officers to obtain consent from a minor.
Watch the ACLU's full press conference here:
"SDPD routinely stops us just for being black," said Christopher Rice-Wilson with Alliance San Diego. He argued police are trying to build a database on brown and black children.
He says he's also been stopped in Memorial Park for no reason.
“To have a police car roll up and ask what you're doing over here and have to justify your mere existence, yeah I felt intimidated,” he said.
Police found an unloaded gun in a duffel bag one of the teens was carrying, the case was thrown out in court, as the 'fruit' of an unlawful search.
“When our children have been handcuffed multiple times before they hit high school but never committed a crime then there's a problem,” said Wilson.
