Jury finds Rochester man held unlawfully

Illegal traffic stop, officer lie behind $375K award

Kayla Canne

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle USA TODAY NETWORK

A Rochester police officer lied about having probable cause and falsely arrested a man during an unlawful traffic stop, a federal jury has found. The man, Devin Johnson, spent more than a year in Monroe County Jail before a judge dismissed the charges.

A federal jury on Feb. 6 awarded Johnson $375,000 in compensatory damages and ordered the city to cover his legal costs related to the 2019 case.

The man’s attorney, Elliot Shields, said Rochester police surveilled and targeted Johnson “because he was driving a nice car in their patrol area.”

“Mr. Johnson lost 14.5 months of his life, his livelihood, and irreplaceable time with his newborn daughter,” Shields said in a statement.

A Rochester police officer stopped Johnson, then 25, while he was driving in the area of Clifford Avenue and Miller Street on Aug. 24, 2019. Johnson had borrowed a luxury Audi SUV from his daughter’s mother and had stopped at a gas station to fill up his tank and get a drink before returning home.

According to the lawsuit, police spotted Johnson on the city’s blue light surveillance cameras and thought he was “acting suspiciously.” Police said the gas station was a hot spot for drug dealing.

As Johnson drove away, RPD Officer Jonathan Laureano sped to catch up to him.

The officer claimed Johnson pulled to the side of the road without activating his turn signal, giving him probable cause for a lawful traffic stop. But blue light camera footage would later show Johnson pulled over only after Laureano had already initiated the stop by flashing the emergency lights on his police cruiser.

After Johnson was arrested for the purported traffic violation, officers searched the SUV and found a loaded gun under the passenger seat. Johnson was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and spent the next year in jail while the criminal case was pending.

Shields said Johnson was unaware of the gun when he borrowed the vehicle, and his DNA and fingerprints were not found on the firearm.

Eventually, the charges were dropped after state Supreme Court Justice Charles Schiano ruled the traffic stop was unlawful. Police did not have probable cause to stop Johnson or search the vehicle.

See LAWSUIT, Page 5A

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What is a pretext stop? Are they legal?

This case is an example of a pretext stop: A police maneuver where officers pursue low-level traffic violations with the hopes of fishing out evidence of more serious crimes. The practice is legal but often invites scrutiny. Critics of pretext stops argue they are applied disproportionately to communities of color and rarely turn up contraband.

Rachel Marshall, the executive director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College, told the Democrat and Chronicle in 2024 that because of stringent road rules, almost any officer could find cause to stop a driver on a minor traffic violation if they follow the car long enough. Pretext stops often include technical violations for things like failure to use a turn signal, burned-out headlights or hanging an air freshener from your rearview mirror.

“These are stops that are not conducted for any public safety reasons,” Marshall said.

Dozens of communities nationwide have made efforts to ban pretext stops, but Rochester police in 2024 defended the practice as a useful investigative tool and said it is mostly used to arrest individuals who are suspects in other crimes.