Discrimination lawsuit filed against Atascadero Police Department

The Atascadero Police Department is under scrutiny after one of their officers was accused of discrimination.

The accuser’s attorney, Matthew Owdom, says one of the Atascadero Police Department’s officers profiled his client, Kyle Bell, because he’s black.

Just-released body cam footage shows an encounter between that Atascadero police officer and Bell.

In the video, the officer approaches Bell, who was standing next to his SUV and smoking a cigarette.

Atascadero Corporal Rochelle Hanson is seen asking Bell, of Visalia, if it’s his wife in the car and his kid in the back.

Hanson then asks Bell to tell his wife to roll down her window to check if she’s “good.”

Bell explains that he just left Morro Bay and stopped off the freeway to smoke a cigarette before getting back on the road. Hanson tells Bell that she finds the situation “weird.”

Bell’s wife then rolls the window down and tells the officer that everything is fine.

Atascadero Police Chief Jerel Haley weighed in on the incident.

“Our department has policies in place that keep our officers from doing anything on the basis of race or any other kind of orientation,” Atascadero Police Chief Jerel Haley said.

Bell’s attorney Matthew Owdom says they asked the police department for an apology and for their officers to take some sort of training on racial profiling. He says that didn’t happen.

“I think there’s one answer that we can come to and we can agree upon and that is because he’s black, because he’s not from Atascadero, because he’s a big black male and he was perceived as a threat and because he was with a woman of another color,” Kyle Bell’s attorney Matthew Owdom said.

Bell has since filed a lawsuit against the police department.

Hanson does still work at the police department – the department could not comment on whether she was reprimanded.