On this week's edition of BlackBox Radio, BlackBox reported that the Michigan ACLU has settled the "Biking while Black" racial profiling case after a federal court ruled that there was sufficient evidence of racial discrimination and illegal searches by the Eastpointe Police Department to take the case to a jury trial. The 160,000 dollar settlement comes 8 years after the case was first filed on behalf of black teenagers.

In 1996, an Eastpointe Police Department memorandum instructed officers to intercept any black youth riding through Eastpointe, a predominantly white suburb of Detrroit. Defendants in the case, children at the time, were pulled over and searched, and in some cases their bikes were confiscated. Bicyclists also claimed police used racial slurs and told them to get back to the other side of 8 mile road. Police logs show over 100 such incidents between 1995-1998 in which black youth aged 11 to 18 were detained.

Eastpointe has denied that any of the actions were improper, and an initial court ruling sided with the officers. However, in June 2005, the decision was reversed. In the decision it was ruled that the pat-down searches, hand-cuffs, seizure of bicycles and detention in police cars violated the 4th amendment, which requires that such police actions be based on reasonable suspicion, for example that the person involved is armed and dangerous.

Marcus Green, a defendant who was 13 at the time of the events, and is now a graduating student at Bowling Green State University, expressed relief that the suit had been settled and stated that he hoped no other child has to go through what he experienced. Kary Moss, Executive Director of the MI ACLU, commended the settlement and hopes it will; serve as a deterrent to the humiliating practice of racial profiling.