A few months ago I read the story of two young women who were stopped in Texas for allegedly throwing a cigarrette butt out the window. Obviously, that “littering” allegation was just a pretext to stop them and sniff them out for other crimes. The cops claimed to smell marijuana, which is another pretext to allow them to search the car. When that turned up nothing, the officer put on rubber gloves and performed a cavity search in the most personal places on a woman’s body. Right on the side of the road. Of course, they again found nothing. You can read the story and see the shocking video here. You can also read about the lawsuit settlement that the women got and the fact that the officer involved was not only fired but charged with the crimes of sexual assault herself.
I thought the story was a very sad commentary on how bad things have gotten in some places, what a scary thing it is to be stopped even when you haven’t done anything wrong and the power that law enforcement wields over people. BUT, the story was from Texas and I thought that THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN HERE.
Unfortunately, that was naive of me. In our own local shocking story and video, a young mother is at the post office in Mission, Kansas this past March. The post office is closed. While she is trying to mail some packages using an automated machine, her kids are running around and they put some pebbles through a mail slot. A postal employee calls the police. You can see what happens on the video. The most appalling part of the entire episode is that, not only was this young lady thrown to the ground by two officers and humiliated in front of her two toddler daughters, she was then subjected to a search. You can see the officer strap on the rubber gloves just like the Texas case. The citizen asks, “Are you going to stick your hands down my pants?” The officer replies, “Yep” and that is exactly what she does. A CAVITY SEARCH on the public streets of Mission, KS for a person, at worst, accused of disorderly conduct and obstruction of an officer (for not producing ID fast enough). Right in front of her daughters who you can hear screaming and crying on the video.
Cavity searches are reserved for those rare cases in which there is a reason to believe that a person has contraband hidden in a body cavity. They are not supposed to be part of a routine arrest out on the street. This lady was not arrested for a drug charge or even a DUI. There was no indication that she had, or was on, any drugs. What reason did they have to go down her pants? Wow, that is frightening. I guess it can happen anywhere.