Police Officers Charged for Strip Search

Four police officers were recently charged with felony offenses after a strip search that allegedly involved illegal and illicit actions. The police misconduct is said to have been happening for more than two years, and involves rectal searches both on the streets and at various police stations. One victim states that the officers held a gun to his head so that one of the other police officers could force his hand into the victim’s rectum.

There are many other similar complaints, many involving serious injuries as a result of these strip searches. Police procedures explicitly prevent officers from conducting cavity searches, which is something that only trained medical examiners are allowed to do. Before even medical examiners can do a cavity search, they must obtain a search warrant. The police officers’ chief along with his department is currently under scrutiny for a number of other alleged acts of misconduct, including fraudulently reporting criminal statistics to both the public and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

This case seems to hinge on how these actions are defined. While some are attempting to call these actions “willful misconduct,” others seem to think that it was simply an “error.” Out of the four police officers that were charged, only one is facing 25 counts of sexual assault. The others face counts of misconduct and illegal strip searches. All of these are felony offenses.

The maximum penalty for police misconduct is 3 and a half years in prison while the maximum punishment for an illegal cavity search is up to 90 days in jail. All of the police officers have pled “not guilty” to these charges, but many are calling this the most scandalous case involving this particular police department in the past five years. The last big criminal case against police officers in this area involved an illegal beating.