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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTwo Women in Bikinis Given FORCED BODY CAVITY SEARCHES On Side of Highway
Whats with Texas? I mean, really. Whats with a state that seems lost in the creaky, archaic past when women were chattel, men were masters, and police could cavity search women in bikinis with impunity? Yet that last one cavity-searching women in bikinis is about as contemporary as the date of May 28, 2012, Memorial Day of last year, when state trooper Nathaniel Turner stopped two African-American women returning from Surfside beach in Brazoria County, Texas for speeding. Likely a routine stop on Highway 288, but what followed was anything but routine; the reason it is in the news a little over a year later is that the women have decided to file a federal lawsuit against the officers involved.
With the dash-cam on the troopers car capturing every salacious moment of the stop, the event unfolded as follows:
Officer Turner approached the car in which Brandy Hamilton and Alexandria Randle were traveling. Hamilton is heard on the tape asking Turner if she can put her dress on, as she was clad only in a bikini, and he tells her not to worry about it and to step out of the car. He asks if they have anything illegal in the car after claiming to smell marijuana and Hamilton answers no. He then pulls Randle out of the car and radios a female trooper. From KHOU.Houston 7.3.13:
One of them has got her zipper open on her pants of her daisy dukes shorts whatever they are, he said.
Brandy Hamilton was the first to be searched. The exchange was captured on camera:
Are you serious, Hamilton asked the trooper.
If you hid something in there, were going to find it, said the trooper.
Youre going to go up my private parts, Hamilton said.
Yes maam, she said.
Nothing was found on either woman and they claim gloves werent changed between searches.
From KHOU.Houston 7.4.13:
Its been traumatizing, Hamilton said. Its been a very horrific situation to me. [... ]
She just came right over and there was no switch out of anything which is disgusting, Randle said.
http://www.khou.com/news/editors-pick/2-women-in-bikinis-sue-over-body-cavity-search-on-side-of-Highway-288-214094861.html
So the female officer not only cavity searched both women without cause, she cavity searched them without changing gloves. Disgusting, likely unhealthy, and deeply, profoundly inappropriate. That a female officer participated in this appalling violation speaks volumes about what? Texas female officers? Texas in general? Whatever it is, it is beyond an embarrassing experience, as one of the women called it; it is close to traumatizing and horrific akin to digital rape (which recently landed a few boys in prison in Steubenville).
As for the officers in Texas? The female trooper, Jennie Bui, has been fired. Turner, the male officer, has only been suspended pending an internal investigation, leading one to ask why the gender inequitability in that consequence? (Remember, its Texas.) Hamilton and Randles federal lawsuit has been filed against both Turner and Bui, as well as the Brazoria County Sheriffs Department, Sheriff Charles Wagner and deputy Aaron Kindred. Clearly theyre not taking this sitting down, which they shouldnt.
cont'
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/07/08/black-women-cavity-search-texas-video/
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Just a suspension?
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)reusrename
(1,716 posts)Put them on cell block D with the other violent offenders.
RedCappedBandit
(5,514 posts)I had to check the date on this article as I could have sworn I read something almost identical in the past. Even down to the disgusting details (not changing gloves? wtf)
Guess this sort of thing just happens repeatedly.
Surely, these cops were just a few bad apples.
bike man
(620 posts)were a couple of threads about it in March of this year.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)the decent 10% a bad name.
gopiscrap
(23,766 posts)but then again all fucking cops are like that.....
BainsBane
(53,116 posts)Because that is exactly what is was.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Alameda
(1,895 posts)HipChick
(25,485 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)donco
(1,548 posts)will probably land a job in VA.
Segami
(14,923 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)The list is too long for the entire internet to hold it
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)he would rent out Texas and live in hell.
I am moving to China this fall. I would much rather live in China than Texas. Just me, and just sayin'.
Tien1985
(920 posts)Article says "almost digital rape". There is no almost about this--it WAS digital rape. The officers belong in jail.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)I went to shop in Von's here in California today and a car drove in with Texas license plate, when I was leaving, that had a placard saying "Don't Mess With Texas Women". So I think there is going to be a backlash, when all those big-haired, Daisy Duke shorts wearing ladies get really pissed. I lived in Texas and the women aren't to be messed with, so watch out. Actually, one of my favorite G. friends there was a deputy sheriff, whom I met on the job. She was big and strong, reminds me in retrospect of the Brienne character in "Game of Thrones" but somehow I don't see her being forced to do this. She actually used to go out of her way to help the women. I even witnessed a kindness she showed to a truck stop prostitute that the owners of an establishment were trying to get arrested. So I don't know who this woman is but she's not the norm that I saw. The men, yes.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)PD Turk
(1,289 posts)Seems like not a day goes by that there isn't at least one story of thug cops brutalizing citizens if not multiple stories.
The day is fast approaching when we might need to mount forcible resistance to these thugs IMO. This is no way to live in a supposedly free and civilized society
AsahinaKimi
(20,776 posts)by the side of the road?
TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)It was posted here rather recently. Same exact scenerio as what happened to the two women in your post including the bogus drug search and not changing gloves in between the two woman being searched. In that case it was Trooper David Ferrell and Trooper Kelley Helleson who did the cavity search on the womenn. Ferrell was suspended but also charged with theft as he stole one of the women's prescription meds from out of her car or out of her purse while Helleson preformed the cavity searches.
Former Trooper Kelley Helleson was charged with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of official oppression in the July 13 incident caught on a dashboard camera along an Irving highway, reported CBS affiliate KTVT in Dallas.
The Texas Department of Public Safety fired Helleson following an investigation.
The other trooper, David Farrell, was charged with theft after one of the women said her prescription bottle of hydrocodone went missing following the traffic stop near Dallas, according to KTVT.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/2-texas-state-troopers-indicted-roadside-cavity-search-article-1.1297749#ixzz2YVZd5Oos
Obviously this is a procedure that has been condoned by some hire-up in Texas especially in both cases the whole thing took place front and center of the dashcams.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)May you collect millions. And the cops - who always manage to "smell marijuana" when it is convenient for them to do so - can fry in hell.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)From what and with what?
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)more like whitewash