Khalil was riding in a car in a Boston suburb with his brother and a friend in 2003 when, he recalls, a police cruiser “put the lights on us and pulled us over.”
The officer claimed that their vehicle matched the description of one involved in a shooting. According to the police report, as the officer approached the car, he saw Khalil “moving about in his seat in an apparent attempt to conceal something.” The officer told Khalil to get out of the car. As he patted him down, he noticed a substance, he would later write, that “through training and experience” he believed could be a package of illegal drugs.