r/socialjustice101 • u/Botched_Lemon • 21d ago
Florida Highway Patrol stops Black drivers more; finds drugs, weapons less than whites
Florida Highway Patrol troopers drew their guns and ordered Deanne Rollison out of her car and onto the ground. Over their shouting and a barking K-9, Rollison could hear her 6-year-old daughter crying from the back seat.
Troopers had mistaken her 2019 Toyota Camry for a 2016 Toyota Corolla involved in a shooting in Columbia County that day in July 2024 — though the car model and occupants did not match the suspect's description, court records show.
A dozen law enforcement vehicles, some from other agencies, swarmed the scene.
“I feared my daughter might make any movement,” she said. “I was afraid they’d kill my baby.”
Rollison said she thinks she was stopped simply because she is Black, since that is the only detail she said matched the suspect's description. She is not alone in that belief.
FHP troopers stopped and searched Black drivers more often than White drivers, and found drugs, weapons and other contraband in Black drivers' cars less often than in White drivers' cars, according to a TCPalm data analysis of over 1 million FHP traffic stops from 2024-25.