'I thought I was going to be George Floyd before George Floyd,' says man stopped, cuffed by Minneapolis officer

Ramone Brown recalls the Minneapolis police officer following him in his squad car, ordering him to get out, accusing him of having expired plates and handcuffing him.

"What did I do?" Brown asked. The officer, Ty Jindra, threatened to take him to jail.

Jindra, as a federal court case later revealed, had made the police stop because he was looking for drugs to feed his addiction.

Convicted last year of five federal counts including confiscating drugs for his personal use as well as violating the civil rights of two people, one of whom was Brown, Jindra was sentenced June 8 by U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank to 38 months in prison. He is now being held in a low security federal prison in Loretto, Pa. Evidence at the trial indicated Jindra conducted a number of illegal searches and targeted people of color.

Brown, who is Black, is now suing Jindra and the city of Minneapolis in Hennepin County District Court, accusing them both of violating his civil rights as well as assault, battery and unlawful imprisonment. Brown's Minneapolis attorney, Joshua Williams, is seeking $50,000 or more in compensation.

Both the city and Jindra were served the lawsuit late last month, according to documents provided by Williams. The suit has yet to be filed in court.

"The City Attorney's Office is in the process of reviewing the lawsuit and has no other comment at this time," said Sarah McKenzie, a spokeswoman for the city.

The incident, which occurred on July 5, 2019, frightened Brown. "I thought I was going to be George Floyd before George Floyd," he said.

Brown, now 30, is a forklift driver with four children, two of whom are living with him and his companion in north Minneapolis. State court files show he has no criminal record.

Jindra was investigated by the Minneapolis Police Department's internal affairs division in 2019 after Jindra had gone into a house for no apparent reason while paramedics were treating a man with an overdose on the front lawn. Body camera footage showed him searching inside the house before he inexplicably turned off the camera.

Other body camera footage turned up more instances of questionable searches in which Jindra appeared to be making police stops for spurious reasons and pocketing drugs he seized. He was releasing the people he detained without arresting them.

Jindra was terminated in 2020 for violating the department's search and seizure policy in connection with a 2017 complaint and the internal affairs cases were referred to the FBI.

In an interview this week, Brown said he and a friend were driving south on Nicollet Avenue between 8:30 and 9 p.m. in a newly purchased 2007 Buick Lucerne. They were headed to a Franklin Avenue gas station to buy an energy drink.

As he approached Franklin, Brown saw Jindra driving toward him. Jindra pulled up behind Brown as he pulled into a BP station. Jindra's body camera video, shown at trial and provided to the Star Tribune this week by the U.S. Justice Department, indicates he did not activate his emergency lights.

As Brown gets out of his car, he appears surprised as Jindra approaches him and orders him back into his vehicle, the footage shows. Brown asked Jindra what he had done.

Jindra said Brown had an expired license registration taped to the back window. In the video Jindra appears to ignore the fact that Brown had proper plates, which he had not yet fastened to the car but which were visible in the back.

Brown told Jindra the proper information was in the back as he fumbled for his proof of insurance.

At the federal trial, prosecution witnesses said that in order to conduct such searches, police need evidence of illegal activity, and an expired registration is not grounds for a search.

Brown said he would later discover Jindra tore off the door to his Buick's glove compartment and ripped up the car's center console during his search.

At one point, the footage shows Jindra holding a dollar bill wrapped around a white powdery substance. It is unclear if it was in the car. He walks back to Brown and asks him if it is his and what is it.

Brown says it wasn't his and he doesn't know what it is.

Brown said he wondered if Jindra was going to "take me to jail or beat me up or worse."

"I'm going to give you a break," Jindra says. The video ends with no arrest.

Three years later Brown said he doesn't think much of the prison sentence Jindra received, calling it "a slap on the wrist."

Raised in Arkansas but having spent most of his adult life in Minnesota, Brown said he is thinking of moving back where he said police aren't any worse.