Two young members of the Campo Kumeyaay Nation were stopped and searched by sheriff's deputies in San Diego County, California, in what parents are calling an incident of racial profiling.

The 12-year-old girl and her 15-year-old brother were jogging in their neighborhood with another 12-year-old boy, who is not a tribal member. The deputies accused them of being outside past curfew and asked why they were wearing camouflage gear.

"My 12-year-old daughter was put against the car and she was searched by an adult male officer; the kids said they were touching their butts," Carmen Gomez Villeda Wagner, the mother of the Campo youth, told East County Magazine. "My son said they put their hands up between their legs. They were crying and they were all shocked…No one in my household has ever been involved in illegal activities."

Wagner said one of the officers cursed and spat in her son's face. Her son now faces a felony charge because he was carrying a knife.

"I think it was racial profiling," Wagner told the magazine.

The mother of the 12-year-old boy agreed. "If they were three white children, would it have happened at all? I think it’s racial profiling," the woman, who didn't want to be identified for fear of retaliation by law enforcement, was quoted as saying.

The youth were jogging because they were going to take part in a Border Patrol summer program.

Get the Story:
POINTS OF CONTROVERSY: SHERIFF DEPUTIES’ TREATMENT OF 3 KIDS JOGGING IN RURAL AREA RAISE COMMUNITY CONCERNS (East County Magazine September 2010)