Whenever a Florida Highway Patrol trooper stops Charlie Ray Mayhue, he calls his mother so someone knows where he is and what’s happening to him.

The 24-year-old Black Orlando resident began this habit after FHP troopers searched him in 2024, but found no illegal drugs or weapons on him or in his car, FHP data show. He was stopped for speeding.

“It’s an invasion of privacy,” he said of searches. “One guy was super determined that I had something in the car.”

Mayhue is not an outlier. FHP troopers search Black drivers more than three times as often as White drivers, but are 12% less likely to find contraband on them, an April 22 TCPalm investigation found.

10 FHP troopers searched most Black drivers with fewest hits

Searches are rare in traffic enforcement. All 1,871 troopers averaged one search per 300 stops, and 82% of troopers didn’t search anyone, according to TCPalm’s data analysis of over 1 million FHP traffic stops from 2024-25.

FHP’s overall hit rate, meaning the percentage of searches that turn up contraband, is 58% for White drivers and 53% for Black drivers.

Not every trooper’s search statistics show racial disparities. Rather, the disparity is concentrated in a handful of troopers. Ten troopers accounted for 30% of all searches of Black drivers — making them extreme outliers.

These 10 troopers searched one in four Black drivers, compared to one in eight White drivers. When they searched Black drivers, they found contraband on the person or in their car of about one in five times.

Researchers consider search and contraband hit rates as one of the most reliable indicators of potential racial bias in an agency, according to studies by Stanford and Northeastern universities and the Department of Justice. When troopers search minority drivers more often and do not find anything, it erodes community trust in policing, the studies say.

None of the 10 troopers nor FHP officials responded to TCPalm’s multiple requests for comment. FHP is led by Col. Gary L. Howze II, who reports to Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles executive director Dave Kerner.

Morozov had the widest racial gap of the group: His searches of Black drivers came up empty six times out of 10, versus three times out of 10 for White drivers.

Pepitone had the highest Black search rate: He searched more than half the 192 Black drivers he stopped.

Another trooper of note not on the list was Ronald I. Khune, who patrols the western Florida Panhandle. He searched 12 Black drivers and didn’t find anything on any of them.

All troopers listed are White, except for Dominic Alexandre, who is Black, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement staff rolls.

FHP Criminal Interdiction Unit seeks drug traffickers

One reason for high search rates could be that some of the 10 troopers are part of the Criminal Interdiction Unit, said Jack McDevitt, author and former criminology professor at Northeastern University in Boston. At least two troopers — Sistrunk and Pepitone — are part of that unit, TCPalm found. 

The unit focuses on stopping drug traffickers, and works closely with the Florida Office of Drug Control. Despite its focus on seizing illegal drugs, the two verified troopers in this unit found no contraband in three of every four searches of Black drivers, even though they searched Black drivers nearly twice as often as White drivers, FHP data show.

If troopers search minority drivers more often but find contraband less often, there is the potential that Black drivers are being disproportionately targeted, McDevitt told TCPalm. 

“If we believe there’s no bias, then we should be looking for the same indicators of drug activity on all the drivers we pull over, regardless of their ethnicity,” he said. 

Trooper salaries, histories and accolades 

Some of the 10 troopers have been on the force for decades, and many have received accolades over the years. 

What research says about racial biasFlorida Highway Patrol makes arrests in Fort Pierce during immigration crackdown

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Two Florida Highway Patrol vehicles pull over a Ford E-350 van with a Georgia license plate off Orange Avenue and Vista Court, Oct. 21, 2025, at about 1 p.m., in Fort Pierce. Three unmarked vehicles were also involved in the traffic stop where four landscapers, who lived seasonally in Fort Pierce, were arrested following the traffic stop. Troopers placed the four in handcuffs as a Florida Highway Patrol helicopter circled the scene for about 45 minutes.

(KAILA JONES /TCPALM)

Almost one in five officers nationally showed unconscious and implicit bias, and one in eight showed explicit bias, according to a 2020 study led by the University of Miami. 

“Although a small number of police may be responsible for a disproportionate number of misconduct incidents, the mistreatment of Black people appears to be embedded within, and legitimated by, a collective, organizational culture characterized by anti-Black prejudice,” the study concluded.

Local to Florida, about 42% of troopers displayed discriminatory enforcement patterns in speeding citations, according to a 2021 study by the nonpartisan American Economic Association, based on FHP speeding-ticket data.

“Thinking deeply about whether racial bias is very concentrated among a small set of actors as opposed to diffuse throughout is going to be really important for thinking about policy implications to remedy racial disparities,” said one of the study’s authors, Dartmouth College economist Steven Mello.

Florida counties with highest racial disparity among searches

Search rates vary by county, with the widest gap in Manatee County, where Black drivers were eight times as likely to be searched as White drivers.

Pepitone patrols a region that includes Manatee County, where he searched about one in five of the Black drivers he stopped.

Troopers in St. Johns, Columbia and Hillsborough counties searched Black drivers at least seven times as often as White drivers.

Racial profiling chills community trust

When law enforcement officers search people without finding contraband, it is not just an inconvenience to the driver. Even the perception of racial bias causes “resentment and distrust of the police, particularly in communities of color,” according to the National Institute of Justice.

That erosion of trust makes people of color less likely to report crimes, confide in police officers, be witnesses at trials or serve on juries.

That distrust has already reached Florida courtrooms.

Charles Black Jr. was driving home in 2021 when FHP mistook the 27-year-old Black Tallahassee resident for a wanted suspect. He was pulled over at gunpoint, patted down and handcuffed, court records show. 

He filed suit alleging FHP racially profiled him. He feared for his life because he knew Black men are statistically more likely to be killed by law enforcement, the lawsuit reads. A federal court dismissed the case, finding the trooper was shielded from liability.

“All they had was a Black driver in a similar car, and all the other evidence said it was not the individual they were seeking,” his attorney, James V. Cook, told TCPalm. “I had always thought FHP was more professional than other agencies.”

Note on methodology: TCPalm’s analysis draws from FHP’s Traffic Stop Data Report, which captures driver demographics, stop times, trooper IDs, search rationale and reason for stop. Troopers who conducted 10 or fewer searches were excluded to ensure statistically reliable rates. Low contraband hit rates were determined based on the agency’s overall median hit rate of 54% of searches. Because troopers are often required to search drivers or their vehicles taken into custody, the analysis excluded troopers whose search rates were driven mostly by arrests. 

Jack Lemnus is a TCPalm enterprise reporter. Contact him at jack.lemnus@tcpalm.com, 772-409-1345, or follow him on X @JackLemnus.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: 10 Florida troopers with most Black searches, fewest contraband hits