A Denver man has filed a claim in the U.S. District Court for Colorado claiming that the Aurora Police Department and at least six individual officers violated his constitutional rights by stopping and searching his vehicle without probable cause, reasonable suspicion or other legal basis.

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Jehrone D. Falls wrote that on Sept. 2 he noticed a police Ford F-150 pickup truck following him as he left a friend’s house shortly before midnight. The officer driving allegedly activated his lights, and when Falls pulled over, four officers exited the vehicle. They informed Falls that he had failed to obey a traffic signal.

One officer returned to the F-150 while the others guarded Falls. When the officer came back to Falls’s vehicle, he demanded that Falls get out.

“When Plaintiff protested, because he knows his rights, Defendant [Dustin] Petersen snatched the vehicle door open, put Plaintiff in a twist lock, and pulled him out of the vehicle,” Falls wrote in the complaint.

The officers searched Falls’s vehicle, but ultimately did not find anything. Peterson allegedly told Falls that he had to search for drugs and firearms, given Falls’s criminal history. Falls said he received a traffic ticket from the interaction.

Falls cited another traffic stop on Sept. 17 along Colfax Avenue, in which four police vehicles surrounded him. The officer who pulled Falls over told him that his license plate validation tabs were attached improperly.

Falls said that two officers “opened the vehicle’s door, put Plaintiff in a twist lock, and pulled him out of his vehicle, without warning.”

Once again, they searched the vehicle, telling Falls that they were looking for guns and drugs due to his criminal history. Nothing was uncovered and Falls received another ticket.

A third incident on Nov. 29 followed the same pattern, with an officer “also mention[ing] the $300.00-$400.00 he seen in the cup holder of the vehicle” in explaining his decision to search the vehicle.

“Plaintiffs race was a motivating factor in the decision of Defendants to stop, detain and threaten Plaintiff, undertaken with the purpose of depriving Plaintiff of the equal protection and benefits of the law, equal privileges and immunities under the law,” Falls wrote.

He alleged that he suffered “humiliation, mental and emotional distress, [and] loss of enjoyment in life” as a result of these “Terry stops.” Such police interactions to detain and investigate suspects are done without probable cause and are lawful — New York City’s “stop and frisk” policy being a prominent example.

Falls said that he filed a complaint with the police department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, only to be told that the officers did nothing wrong.

Falls alleges that the department knew or should have known about its officers’ racially-biased searches.

He is requesting a jury trial. His complaint references police excessive use of force cases in Aurora involving blacks and Latinos. It also states that whites are subject to relatively fewer traffic stops and vehicle searches.

The Aurora Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last month, The Denver Post reported that the city is considering creating a civilian review board following the death of a 23-year-old unarmed black man who Aurora police detained forcibly and injected with ketamine, a strong sedative.

The body camera footage from the incident shows Elijah McClain saying “I have a right to walk where I am going” before the struggle commenced.