'I have had one bad experience after another'
Drivers frustrated by encounters with police
by Nancy Hernandez
News-Post Staff

	Michael Sack Elmaleh was pulled over for failing to stop at a stop sign on Jan. 7. He says he didn't go through the stop and was left to wonder what prompted the stop. Staff photo by Graham Cullen

Some residents question the validity of the reasons they were stopped by law enforcement personnel on Frederick County roads in the past year. They suspect profiling based on their physical appearance was an unspoken component of their traffic stop experiences.

FREDERICK — Michael Sack Elmaleh tossed his tennis rackets into his dirt-encrusted 1994 Ford Mercury Cougar on Jan. 7.

He and a buddy, Lynn Sorbello, had just finished playing several sets at the Baker Park courts. Sack Elmaleh started down Fleming Avenue. Sorbello followed behind in his Toyota Camry.

When Sack Elmaleh got to the four-way intersection at College Terrace and Second Street, he saw a Frederick city police cruiser stopped across the street.

“It looked like the police car was in the intersection and going to turn,” said Sack Elmaleh, 57.

He motioned with his left hand for the officer to go ahead.

“I signaled because he was there first and had the right of way,” Sack Elmaleh said.

The police car didn’t move. Sack Elmaleh motioned again. Still nothing happened. So he looked both ways and turned left onto Second Street.

As soon as he turned, the police car turned behind him. The officer followed him a short distance down the street and pulled him over.

Sack Elmaleh got a $90 ticket for failing to stop at the stop sign.

“It was an absurdity,” he said. “I not only stopped, I waved him over.”

Sorbello was stunned as well when he rounded the bend and saw his friend had been pulled over. He saw the police lights go on seconds after Sack Elmaleh turned the corner, but thought the officer must have been responding to an alert.

“I was very surprised it was he who was pulled over, that totally stumped me,” Sorbello said. “All I could speculate was maybe he had an expired tag.”

It wasn’t until the next day when he called Sack Elmaleh to find out what happened that he learned his friend was stopped for ignoring a stop sign.

“I can’t make any sense of it,” Sorbello said.

Sack Elmaleh began replaying the stop in his mind, searching for possible explanations. Only two surfaced.

Perhaps the officer hadn’t seen him motion. The sun was low in the sky at that time, creating an awful glare. Sack Elmaleh knew because he had competed with both the glare and Sorbello during their tennis match.

The other possibility disturbed Sack Elmaleh.

“I want to believe it is an honest mistake,” he said. “If it isn’t, it is profiling.”

Sack Elmaleh, who is white, sports a long, sweeping mustache and has olive skin and dark hair.

“From a distance, I could be confused for Hispanic,” he said.

He was dressed casually in a sweat suit and knit hat, and driving an old car in desperate need of a wash. Perhaps, the officer thought he looked like an immigrant who would be an easy ticket, Sack Elmaleh said.

“I don’t want to accuse; all I know is I didn’t go through that stop,” he said.

A third possibility developed as he prepared for his court date to contest the citation. The intersection noted was Fleming Avenue and College Terrace, one block prior to the one where he had motioned to the officer.

Sack Elmaleh said it’s possible he rolled through that stop, but he doubts the officer could have seen him anyway. A huge hedge blocks the view from the spot where the officer was sitting and he would have been looking into the sun.

“I think I was innocent in either event,” Sack Elmaleh said.

He showed up at court earlier this month, eager to hear the officer’s version of events. The officer, however, didn’t attend the court hearing and the case was dismissed.

Sack Elmaleh didn’t end up paying any fines, but was left wondering what prompted the stop.

“We’ll never know what went on, and what he was ticketing me for,” he said.

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MYERSVILLE — Debra Ryan blames racial profiling for her family’s high vehicle insurance rates.

The family pays more than $12,000 a year to insure four drivers, not to mention the hundreds of dollars they have spent contesting citations they believe were unjustified, she said.

Deputies with the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office have hassled her family for eight years, Ryan said.

Her son, in particular, has been stopped many times. She believes he is stopped because of his appearance.

Ryan and her son are white, but both have dark complexions and hair and can be mistaken for Hispanic, she said. Also, her son has many friends of other races, which draws the attention of four white deputies who patrol Myersville, Ryan said.

“I have had one bad experience after another,” she said.

The family’s first encounter with the deputies was shortly after they moved into the community eight years ago. A medical helicopter landed in town.

Her children wanted to get a closer look so she loaded them into their car and parked at a nearby bank.

“All of a sudden, someone is screaming at me to shut my lights off,” she said.

The someone was a sheriff’s deputy, although Ryan wouldn’t learn that until days later. He never identified himself, she said.

She checked her light switch and saw it was off. She didn’t realize at the time that the lights stayed illuminated unless she put on the emergency brake.

“A few minutes later, he is jumping at my car again. This time, he is putting his hand in my car to put my lights off,” Ryan said.

She filed a written complaint. An investigation by the internal affairs division determined the deputy didn’t do anything inappropriate, she said.

“It’s been downhill ever since,” Ryan said.

She flipped through a stack of recent citations her son has received. His charges include dark window tinting, license plate tags not attached properly and spinning his wheels. He also has been stopped twice for driving 10 to 15 miles above the speed limit and not wearing a seat belt.

Some of the charges, like not wearing a seat belt, Ryan believes are false. Her son hasn’t received any citations while at college out of state, but whenever he returns home, he ends up with some type of ticket, she said.

When he questioned the no seat belt and window tinting charges, her son was asked if he knew how to read English, Ryan said.

She has called the sheriff’s office multiple times to complain.

Nothing ever happens. It is her family’s word against the deputies, she said.

“I feel like I live in a dictatorship,” she said.

Her children have lost faith in justice and law enforcement. What good are laws against profiling, if deputies can get around them, she said.

“I have an eight-year file full of problems. It boggles my mind, nobody will do anything about it,” she said.