Charnesia Corley, 21, said she was running an errand for her sick mother when a male Harris County sheriff’s deputy pulled her over near a Texaco station on June 21 and accused her of running a stop sign. The deputy said he smelled marijuana coming from the car, which in Texas is probable cause to search a vehicle…
Her attorney, Samuel Cammack III, told HuffPost the two deputies asked Corley to remove her pants in full view of passersby.
“She said, ‘No, I don’t have any panties on,’ so the officer told her to bend over and she pulled her pants down for her and went to stick her hand inside of Ms. Corely,” Cammack said.
Corley resisted and the deputies forced her face-first to the ground, Cammack said. The female deputy then climbed onto Corley’s back and pinned her, while the officers awaited the arrival of a second female deputy, according to the lawyer. After the second female deputy arrived, the two women officers held Corley down and forcibly spread her legs, Cammack said.
“One held one leg and the other held the other leg and they stuck their fingers up inside of her,” said Cammack. “This was in a Texaco parking lot, where people were walking by and cars were driving by. This was a very busy area.”
Corely was charged with resisting arrest and possession of marijuana, both misdemeanors. Investigators reportedly said they found 0.02 ounces of marijuana on her…
http://www.rt.com/usa/221299-texas-lawsuit-invasive-cavity-search/
A woman is suing the Texas Department of Public Safety and four state troopers for what she calls an overly invasive body-cavity search in broad daylight on the side of the road. One of the troopers was previously sued over the same procedure.
Jennifer Stelly, a Texas Corrections officer, and her boyfriend Channing Castex were pulled over by two troopers for speeding in March 2013, according to the complaint. The officers arrested Castex after they said they smelled marijuana, which he admitted to have smoked previously…
Stelly remained standing on the side of the road during the entire hour-long incident, while Castex was in the backseat of the squad car.
When the female trooper arrived, the search was performed in view of the dashboard-mounted camera in the cop car, as well as in front of the three male officers and the busy highway traffic…
The male troopers laughed as they watched the cavity search, according to the complaint.
“I was on my cycle so she could not penetrate the vaginal area but she went to the anal area and she penetrated and put her finger inside and I just felt violated,” Stelly told KRIV. The officer did not change gloves between portions of the examination, court records said…
Booker noted that the same female trooper, Kelley Helleson, was a defendant in a previous lawsuit involving roadside cavity searches. In that 2012 incident, video from a dash-mounted camera shows Helleson using her fingers to search the anuses and vaginas of the women. The trooper used the same latex glove to touch the genitals of both women, while conducting the search on the side of the road in full view of the passing vehicles. Booker also represented the two women in that case, which was settled out of court for $185,000…
In 2013, two other women filed suit against the Texas Department of Public Safety after a roadside body-cavity search performed by another state trooper, Jennie Bui. New Mexico law enforcement has also been under fire for invasive searches, including a lawsuit from a woman who claims a corrections officer sprayed mace on a her genitals during a strip search.
According to NBC News, 38-year-old Angel Dobbs and 24-year-old Ashley Dobbs from Irving, Tex., were driving along Highway 161 on July 13, when they were stopped for allegedly littering by State Trooper David Farrell.
“In the dashcam video released by the women and their attorney, Farrell can be heard telling the women they would both be cited for littering for throwing cigarette butts out of the car,” the news agency reports.
After stopping the women, Farrell — who claims to have “smelled marijuana” in their vehicle — reportedly questioned the women about the drug and searched their car for traces of pot…
The trooper then returned to his vehicle and called female state trooper Kelley Helleson to the scene. He said he wanted Helleson to search the women because they were “acting weird,” according to the dashcam recording.
Angel and Ashley claim that they were then subjected to a very public and “humiliating” roadside body cavity search. They both claim that they were not warned beforehand that the “intrusive” search was about to take place…
Two mothers are suing a South Texas county and sheriff after claiming they were ‘illegally strip searched’ along a highway, in plain view of other drivers. Brittah Williams, currently pregnant with her second child, and mother-of-one Jesica Mascorro, both of Refugio, Texas, filed a lawsuit against County Sheriff Robert Bolcik and two of his deputies…
When asked why they had been stopped Sheriff Bolcik said he had information that Ms Williams’ boyfriend at the time was smuggling drugs into the county. He needed to search her car, he said.
After the search, no drugs were found, the lawsuit states. Deputy Shelley Haertig then arrived and searched the women. According to the lawsuit, she told the women: ‘to pull their dresses up to their neck and their underwear down to their ankles, to bend over and spread their cheeks,’ KZTV10.com reported.
The entire ordeal lasted more than two hours and Ms Williams’ young son, who was in the car at the time, was also searched, according to the suit…
http://www.storyleak.com/georgia-police-strip-search-drivers-during-minor-traffic-stops/
An investigation out of Georgia has uncovered multiple police departments engaged in strip searches as well as searches inside the pants of drivers pulled over for minor traffic violations…
While sitting in the passenger seat after his wife was pulled over for a suspended registration, Phillips was unexpectedly ordered to exit the vehicle by Forest Park police. Coming up empty on a vehicle search, police suddenly turned their attention back towards Phillips, demanding he submit to a search as well.
Expecting a legal, outside the clothes pat down, Phillips consented to the officer’s requests, only to have the officer demand he pull down his pants on the side of the road.
“That’s illegal, man, you can’t do that. You can’t do that,” Phillips told the officer.
Noting that Phillips was aware of his rights, the officer suddenly claimed to smell marijuana, demanding Phillips remain still as he continued his illegal search… Unsurprisingly, no marijuana was found on Phillips or in the vehicle…
Another passenger, Ben Kassars, was subjected to a similar search after his roommate was pulled over for allegedly following a vehicle to closely. Claiming the men had drugs and threatening them with jail if they refused, officers went inside Kassars’ pants as he leaned on the back of his vehicle…
The investigation found more than half a dozen similar encounters with departments all across the state, leading many to wonder if a state wide policy has been quietly implemented by police. Incredibly, similar incidents have been reported all across the country as well in recent years…
Just last November, a Southern New Mexico man, pulled over for allegedly failing to make a complete stop, was forced to undergo two illegal anal searches, three enemas and a colonoscopy after police claimed he was “clenching his buttocks” and concealing drugs.
The illegal search failed to produce any drugs…
The plaintiffs claim Ford and Douglas were handcuffed and searched on the street as additional officers arrived, and that the searches including reaching down the front of their pants. According to the lawsuit, Douglas was later shackled to the window bars of a nearby home, where officers pulled his pants down, bent him over and searched his buttocks…
The female defendant, Halley, claims she was surrounded by five male officers while a female officer ordered her to remove her pants — despite her pleas that she was menstruating. The officer allegedly ordered Halley to remove her tampon and proceeded to conducted the search in her vagina while the other officers make jokes and laughed, according to the lawsuit. The female officer claimed to have found a bag of heroin in Halley’s waistband, which Halley maintains was planted…
The verdict, handed down after three days of testimony and about five hours of deliberations, was the first in potentially dozens of civil rights trials alleging illegal strip and cavity searches by Milwaukee police. More than 60 people have sued the city and the Police Department in connection with such searches…
The officers contended they had been tipped off by a security officer at a nearby housing complex that Hardy hung out with a man they believed was trespassing. Gasser said he smelled marijuana as he approached…
There was no mention of marijuana in any of the police reports, and Garland said he had not smelled any. Hardy denied he had marijuana and none was found…
A Florida sheriff’s department is denying a woman’s claim that she was strip-searched in public and had her tampon “forcibly” removed by a female officer during a 2011 traffic stop with her children in the car..
She claims she waited in the police cruiser for two hours and when other officers arrived, she was frisked and strip-searched at the side of a busy road, the lawsuit alleges. She said her children had been waiting in the woman’s vehicle the entire time. The lawsuit’s account:
“During her detention, PLAINTIFF was frisked and strip searched twice at the side of the busy road, in plain view of passers by. During one of the strip searches, PLAINTIFF had a tampon forcibly removed by JANE DOE OFFICER.
“At no point was a drug sniffing dog used to search for contraband,” the lawsuit stated, adding “None of the officers ever found any weapons, drugs, contraband or anything illegal during plaintiff’s detention.”
According to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office, Tarantino was issued a criminal citation for violation of restrictions on her driver’s license. She also was issued a written warning for rolling through a stop sign…
All Things Chronic 
I stopped reading these halfway. Is this legal?
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It’s not legal, but enforcement officers get away with so much more than is legal.
I knew this early on account of my dad, first a policeman and then a corrections officer.
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Thanks, Deborah
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The US police violate the rights of people all day every day. Those of us who have experienced know it and those who have never seen it find it hard to believe. I am so glad there is finally social medial and attention being drawn toward their blatant disregard for peoples rights.
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Liked your website. 🙂
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unfuckingbelievable! i don’t even have the words. except to tell you that i’m glad you posted this, because something very like this happened to me in 1993, and it has traumatized me since. I was stopped after last call, as i was leaving a bar with a friend. they told my friend to walk away and not come back, and they told me to stand facing the squad car, they cuffed my hands behind my back, the officer called for backup, and i couldn’t understand why, since i was crying and doing everything he said to do. when the other cops arrived, there were 4 male officers. 3 of them stood guard around the 4th who physically searched me like the women in this article, then they came back around the circle again as they all stood guard while each one took his turn raping me. then i was arrested and taken to a holding cell.
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ps–i am still working on that event in therapy. i am finally starting to be able to heal and let it go and move on. but this was one of the most traumatic things i have ever endured. i tried to file a complaint, but IA (internal affairs) told me it would be my word (of a drunk woman) against the words of 4 male officers who were well regarded and decorated.
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the sense of validation i got from reading this post was very strong. i’m glad to know its not just me this happened to. not that i want for it to happen at all. just i have always felt that i went thru this alone and in silence, and it is very refreshing to hear that i didn’t invite this, cause it, or like it. that i was taken advantage of and raped.
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So cut up to hear your story. So horrible to read all of this…
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I am really sorry to hear that you wen through this Kat. People who haven’t experienced a wanton act of evil like this might not understand why you would say that you didn’t invite it or cause it. Of course you didn’t. But when you go through something like this you keep running through all the possibilities in your head trying to understand it, including the idea that you may have done something to make it happen.
I think that is why it is so hard to get closure with traumatic events like this. The fact is those cops were 100 percent responsible for what happened and it is doubtful there is anything you could have done to stop them short of killing them if you had the means. They were in the wrong and should have been punished, but if you had attempted to pursue a case against them they may well have retaliated against you, which is exactly what a lawyer told my father would happen after he was savagely beaten by cops in his own backyard in El Paso, Texas. He said that the cops would be there to harass him every day and finally, after several months, they would pull him over one day and find several ounces of cocaine in his car, and he would go to jail for a long time. He decided not to press charges.
This is exactly what happened to the young man who filmed the choking death of Eric Garner in NYC. A few weeks later the cops detained him and conveniently “found” an illegal handgun on him, which he insists was planted, as it surely was.
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AAAAAAAARGH. Argh. My dad was like these officers. My mom and sisters met the women who encountered him on the job. It’s thinking of them that inspires my drive to reform policing. To say it’s “unacceptable” is to call the ocean “damp.”
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rape. clear cut, no question. dear goddess!
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I agree. To do something like this, in public, is not only humiliating it is rape and the persons involved should be punished accordingly.
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These are just a handful of the stories I found, a lot of them happening in Texas, but I also found one in the UK:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/woman-wins-37000-payout-after-she-was-stripsearched-and-left-naked-by-met-police-10318929.html
Police are using strip searches on drivers because their attempts to find drugs in your car (or in your pockets) have failed. And because all they need is a suspicion of drugs to find you guilty, take any cash or property in your possession, and lock you up (for whatever reason). But, it is not legal to be strip searched before being arrested.
After you’re arrested, it’s a different story. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that jails and prisons are allowed to strip search everyone before they are incarcerated — no matter the crime — because of the potential for any kind of contraband, usually drugs.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/27/texas-woman-strip-searched-tossed-jail-not-paying-/
A Texas woman was arrested, strip-searched and jailed for an overdue traffic ticket Wednesday, a local CBS affiliate first reported.
Sarah Boaz said she was cuffed outside her Richland Hills home by an officer who was waiting for her when she stepped out to go to work, the New York Daily News reported. The officer told her a warrant had been issued for her arrest after she failed to pay a summons for running a stop sign in August…
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This happens everywhere in the US. Here in Stop and Frisk land (“liberal” NY), my nephew has had cops stick their hands down his underwear multiple times. In one incident the male cops didn’t want to do it, so they got a female cop to do it and she ‘copped” herself quite a feel out of it. In another incident they searched his girlfriend though the male cops were happy to stick their hands down her pants, though there was no penetration. This was as humiliating for him as it was for her, as a man feels he is honor bound to protect his girl against abuse of this sort. Romance stories are filled with what happens when the hero gets his revenge, but in his case he was powerless to do anything against armed thugs who could arrest him and rob him of his freedom.
Americans need to wake up and realize we live in an authoritarian police state. Shit like this doesn’t just happen to “other people” or minorities it can happen to anyone.
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Reblogged this on Me: Finding the Missing Pieces.
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