The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that black men have a legitimate reason to run from police officers during field encounters and their actions shouldn’t necessarily be considered suspicious just because they’re running away.

The court said it couldn’t eliminate a flight response as a reason for suspicion, but stated a suspect’s “state of mind or consciousness of guilt” can’t be determined solely by their physical actions. The court suggested a black suspect may be running because he is tired of being hassled by racist cops:

Rather, the finding that black males in Boston are disproportionately and repeatedly targeted for FIO [Field Interrogation and Observation] encounters suggests a reason for flight totally unrelated to consciousness of guilt. Such an individual, when approached by the police, might just as easily be motivated by the desire to avoid the recurring indignity of being racially profiled as by the desire to hide criminal activity. Given this reality for black males in the city of Boston, a judge should, in appropriate cases, consider the report's findings in weighing flight as a factor in the reasonable suspicion calculus.

This determination was based on a previous case in Boston where an individual’s house was broken into and a “vague” description of the suspects was given to police. When the responding officer patrolled the surrounding neighborhood for what boiled down to “black men in red and black hoodies,” he saw two men somewhat matching the description not far from where the burglary took place. The officer pulled up beside the men to conduct the informal FIO simply to determine what they were up to and they ran. That raised the officer’s suspicions and a foot pursuit began. 

During the pursuit, the officer observed one of the men grabbing his pocket, possibly indicating he was steadying an unholstered firearm. As the suspect was booked, no gun was found. However, a nearby search of a front yard produced an unlicensed .22 caliber handgun. The suspect was charged with unlawful possession and later convicted.

In its ruling, the court threw out the man’s gun conviction and said police didn’t have a right to stop him and shouldn’t have used his flight response against him. 

The Massachusetts branch of the ACLU rejoiced in the ruling, calling it “powerful:”

"The state’s highest court, in talking about people of color, it’s saying that their lives matter and under the law, their views matter. The reason that’s significant is that all the time in police-civilian encounters there are disputes about what is suspicious and what is not suspicious. So this is an opinion that looks at those encounters through the eyes of a black man who might justifiably be concerned that he will be the victim of profiling."

The court cited an ACLU report in its opinion they felt proved Boston police disproportionately profile blacks. The report found that between 2007 and 2010, over 60% of police encounter were with blacks even though they make up only 24% of the population. High-crime neighborhoods didn’t explain the disparity, the report added.

However, Boston’s Police Commissioner Bill Evans said the ACLU’s report is”way out of context” and “heavily tainted against the police department.” In his department’s analysis, blacks were only 8% more likely to be stopped repeatedly and 12% more likely to be searched in violent areas.

There is more about the ruling and the case at WBUR.org.