A FBI investigation has cleared the Portage County Sheriff's Department of any wrong doing in a 1998 traffic stop members of a Racine anti-gang task force alleged was racially motivated.
The incident happened when an off-duty dispatcher saw a black man matching the description of a person wanted on a warrant at an east side business. She overheard someone call him the same name as the wanted person. She then contacted the department. Because the car was a rental car, deputies were unable to determine who the owner was and had probable cause to conduct a felony traffic stop. Several deputies conducted the stop and a Stevens Point Police Department officer drove past the scene.
The occupants of the car turned out to be a Racine police officer and civilian members of an anti-gang task force. Deputies immediately released the occupants. When they returned to their hometown, they issued a press release claiming they were the victims of a racially motivated traffic stop and said law enforcement officers in the Stevens Point area were bigoted. They issued the release without the approval of their department and didn't bother to check with Portage County authorities on what had happened. The release made statewide news, but the group later issued an apology for the disruption they caused.
Sheriff Stan Potocki requested the FBI investigation following the incident to vindicate his department.
The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division concluded there was no depravation of civil rights and concluded the matter should be closed, Potocki said.
Potocki told the county Public Safety/Emergency Management Committee he will ask the Racine police chief to issue another public apology.
"Not only did they slander the Sheriff's Department, they slandered every single citizen in Portage County," Potocki said.
Stevens Point Police Chief Douglas Carpenter has indicated he intends to ask Racine officials to apologize, Stevens Point Police and Fire Commission President Richard Judy said.