There was also a traffic stop involving Hanks in which, Gay alleged, the officer was thought to be with gang members in his car “who were drinking,” and potentially a person with a felony warrant. The memo provided no evidence as to why his colleagues thought people in Hanks’s car were gang members. Instead, Hanks said, he was with a close friend, a high school teacher in Syracuse, and the officer who pulled him over never asked for their identification.
