Crime & Safety

WATCH: State Trooper Smashes Car Window; N.J. Driver Claims Racial Profiling

Video (below) shows cop smashed window after driver was allegedly driving 110 mph. Driver has sued cop, claiming he was racially profiled.

A N.J. man has filed a lawsuit against a State Police trooper, saying he and other officers racially profiled him, smashed his car window and wrongly arrested him two years ago, according to a video provided by nj.com.

Dennis J. Ortiz is an “upstanding member” of our community, attorney Joel Silberman, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the 20-year-old, said in the nj.com report. “Absent his dark complexion, long dreadlocks and litany of tattoos, I am almost certain he would not have been treated in this fashion.”

The State Police declined to comment on the pending litigation.

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The video shows that, on April 28, 2014, the 20-year-old Ortiz was driving with his girlfriend from Pennsylvania to New Jersey when he was pulled over by Trooper Robert J. Murray on Route 78 in Tewskbury at 1:30 a.m. for driving 110 miles per hour.

In the video, the trooper says that the reason why he was stopped is because Ortize was doing “110 mph in a 65” mph zone.

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“Just trying to get home,” Ortiz said in the video that was shot on his girlfriend’s smartphone, adding that he was driving from Harrisburg, Pa. to his Bayonne home.

Another frame shows Ortiz upset that he was given “an unlawful sobriety test.”

When Ortiz refuses to another search of the car, and/or refuses to leave the car, the officer then smashes his driver-side window.

“Record all this babe,” he says as his girlfriend records the moment, and sobs.

Here is the video:


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