Legal Equalizer Would Have Kept Me Out Of Prison

Written by Mbye Njie, CEO, Legal Equalizer

This week has given me more clarity as to why Legal Equalizer is needed more today than it ever has. Two separate incidents this week reminded me of how vital it is to have witnesses and also to have an attorney during a police stop. These incidents reminded me of another event in the process of building Legal Equalizer in which I saw someone I knew getting pulled over.

If you have registered for Legal Equalizer, one of the things that pops up frequently is a notification for when people go live. Every once in a while, I will join this livestream just to make sure everything is okay. Most of the time, it is people checking out the app and making sure that it is working.

This past Sunday night, I opened up the app when I received a live stream notification and it was different from any other time that I have opened it up before. When I opened it up, I saw a woman sitting on the side of the road with police lights behind her. At first she was alarmed when I popped up on her screen, but I let her know that I was the founder of the app, and I would stay and watch until her family or friends joined the livestream. She told me that she appreciated me joining, and that it was comforting to know that someone would be there to watch the encounter with her. About a minute into the livestream, two of her family members joined the call, and they were able to sit there and watch the interaction with her. This was the first time that I had personally been involved in watching the app work just like it was supposed to work. I have received messages about it, but I had never seen it for myself.

The second incident that happened this week to show me the importance of Legal Equalizer involves the recent arrest of a young college basketball star. On Sunday, September 18, Eastern Michigan basketball player Emoni Bates was pulled over in Superior Charter Township, Michigan for failing to stop at an intersection. That traffic stop led to a search of the vehicle that he was in, and that search turned up a gun in that had its serial numbers scratched off. Emoni was arrested and charged with two felonies, including carrying a concealed weapon and altering ID marks on a weapon. He has now been suspended by his basketball team, and he will have to go through the arduous, expensive and stressful legal process of trying to clear his name. His attorney has said that the vehicle he was in was a borrowed vehicle, and that Emoni had no idea that a gun was even in the car. The question I have in all of this is why did he even get searched?

Emoni’s name was trending all over social media on Monday when news of his arrest came up, and yet we were not even asking why he was searched in the first place. How did a traffic stop for not stopping at an intersection turn into a vehicle search? That should have been a warning or a ticket, and he should have been free to go on his way, but instead he allowed the cops to search the vehicle he was in, and now his future is in jeopardy.

This case was another reminder of why Legal Equalizer is so important and and how it can help young people all over this country. How differently would that stop have gone if Emoni had his father, mother, coach, teammates and an attorney on a live video call once he got stopped? Do you think the cops would have even gotten to a point of searching the vehicle? Every young driver in this country should have this app on their phone and they should know how to use it along with their parents when stopped. Emoni’s case would have been completely different had he known about Legal Equalizer and used it. Instead of us talking about his arrest, we would have been discussing what his game would be looking like as he returned to play for his hometown college.

Both of those things got me thinking about another case of someone that I knew who happened to spend two years in prison who would have had a different life if Legal Equalizer had been fully working. Quay was an acquaintance who I knew through a mutual friend of mine. At the time, he was a road manager for numerous rap artists here in Atlanta. I told Quay about Legal Equalizer when I met him; he was immediately sold on the idea, and even became an investor himself. Quay told me about his upbringing, and also his previous encounters with the law.

In May of 2018, I was driving in the West End in Atlanta, when I saw Quay had gotten pulled over by the Atlanta Police Department. I immediately called Quay hoping that he would pick up so that I could connect him with an attorney. Unfortunately he did not pick up. I then called an attorney I knew and told him that someone might call him as I had already texted Quay his number and told him to call. Quay’s mistake was waiting until the officer asked him to step out of the car to try and call. By that time it was too late.

I spoke to Quay and he told me how Legal Equalizer would have kept him out of prison, and drastically changed his life. Quay was driving his father’s car that day, so he didn’t even own the vehicle that he was pulled over in. He was pulled over for talking on his cell phone without it being on a phone mount. Quay is adamant to this day that had Legal Equalizer been working in it’s full capacity he would have left that traffic stop with just a ticket for talking on his cell phone. Instead, the police officer asked him questions that had nothing to do with the reason for the stop, and Quay was eventually searched and arrested when they found a gun under the seat. He spent two traumatic years in prison and lost thousands of dollars because of this incident.

This incident always reminds me exactly why I keep on pushing on with this work. This week was further validation that the work that I am doing is indeed important and very necessary.