A Texas woman is accusing the Groves Police Department of racial profiling after she was cited for walking on the wrong side of the street while searching for her lost dog.
Akia Townes and her husband, Brad, were walking through their neighborhood in Groves when police approached her with their hands on their weapons, she told KFDM News. The couple was canvassing the area in search of their missing dog.
“Two cops stopped me. They walked out with their hands on their guns, and then they asked me to see my ID,” Townes said.
Her husband, who is white, began recording the interaction, which quickly escalated. When he questioned why his wife was being cited, officers said she had been walking against the flow of traffic, which is a citable offense on roads without sidewalks under Texas law.
In a video recorded by Brad, Akia expressed frustration over the situation and what she believes was unfair treatment based on her race.
“They got crackheads, robbers, all this other stuff, but they want to arrest a Black person — a pregnant Black woman — for looking for her dog,” she said.
Brad said he was walking in the same direction but was not issued a citation. “I feel like they looked and saw an easy target, and nobody was going to come and defend, and nobody was going to come help,” he added.
The couple has retained attorney Langston Adams to contest the citation. Adams argues that the selective ticketing is indicative of racial profiling or “selective enforcement.”
“It’s not a question of whether she was breaking the law,” Adams said. “We believe it’s selective enforcement. Why didn’t the husband get a ticket? He was also walking on the wrong side of the road, and he’s white. I believe they used her walking on the wrong side as a pretext to stop her.”
Groves City Marshal Chris Robin said the department does not tolerate racism and emphasized that public safety is the priority.
“We’ve seen so many different minor ordinance violations turn into something tragic, and we don’t want that to occur,” Robin told KFDM. “We want to be able to make a difference in making our community safer.”
As of April 8, the citation remains active and under review.
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