Texas Athletes Are Stopped, Searched by Florida Police

Members of a Texas track team here for a national competition were forced from their car at gunpoint by officers who mistook them for armed suspects wanted in a series of beatings.

“I don’t think it was racial. I think they made a big mistake,” Howard Ware, coach of the Austin Striders Track Club, said Friday. His team was in Florida to take part in the AAU Junior Olympics.

Police stopped the car Tuesday, held the teen-age occupants at gunpoint and forced them to lie spread-eagle on the ground.

Police Chief Sid Klein said it was a case of mistaken identity.

“But it went on for an hour,” said Ware, questioning why officers didn’t release the athletes as soon as they discovered the error.

Klein said it took that long because an alert had been broadcast for an identical car--a rental with a paper license tag with red lettering in the left rear window, driven by a young black man.

“It’s really pathetic,” Ware said. “You don’t treat kids like that. It never would have happened had it been white kids. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not prejudiced. But it never would have happened.”

Police Capt. J.D. Eastridge said the incident was unfortunate, but that officers acted appropriately.

“The officers were dealing with a set of circumstances in which they truly believed that the individuals were armed with automatic weapons, and they took precautions,” he said. The youths “were treated very firmly because for all we knew, they had automatic weapons.”

The 16-member team was headed for Clearwater High in the rented car and a van when the car was stopped.

The driver and five passengers, all wearing red team uniforms and AAU identity tags, were told to lie on the pavement and were searched.

About 10 police cars surrounded the car, and the van was pulled over at the same time, Ware said.

“I was scared,” team member Anthony Davis said. “I was afraid that if I put my hands down they would pull the trigger.”