Officers under fire for alleged unlawful strip searches, arrests

CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — Allegations of unlawful public strip searches and bogus arrests by officers from the Forest Park Police Department are now detailed in a lawsuit against the department and the city.

The lawsuit alleges the department's specialized VIPER unit violated the Fourth Amendment rights of several people without probable cause to search or warrants to arrest.

"'Stand right here. Unbuckle your pants.' I was like, 'Unbuckle my pants for what?'” plaintiff Terry Philips told Channel 2’s Kerry Kavanaugh.

"Told me I had to pull my pants down, bend over, squat and cough for him,” said plaintiff Jeffrey Meehan.

The men say traffic stops in 2013 ended with Forest Park police officers strip-searching them in public."When he came back, I'd seen tears," said Tamara Parker.

Parker says she and Terry Philips had just left a grocery store when an officer pulled them over for an expired tag. They said they had the paperwork proving otherwise, but the officer wouldn’t listen.Jeffery Meehan says he was in the back seat of a friend's car when the driver was stopped for not using a blinker. He says they were pulling out of a parking lot and making a right-hand turn when they were stopped.

Meehan says he was searched three times.

"I asked him why, was I being (put) under arrest. He said 'No you're not', but he said, 'You're going to go to jail if you don't do what I'm telling you,'" Meehan told Kavanaugh.

Another couple says they were home asleep when Forest Park officers broke down their front door.

"They were in the house with guns, had us on the ground,” said Jennifer Minor.

She says police officers didn't have a signed search warrant to get in, yet seized some of their property and hauled them off to jail.

“Then they came through my house like it was a pawn shop. You know, just picking out stuff they liked,” said Reginald Walker."The Fourth Amendment apparently does not apply at the Forest Park Department,” said plaintiff’s attorney Mark Bullman.

Bullman says the alleged Fourth Amendment violations are now contained in a lawsuit against the City of Forest Park and several officers who were members of the VIPER unit.

The suit alleges the officers searched people "without reasonable suspicion or probable cause" along with "performing strip-searches and body cavity searches in public."

"Taking somebody's clothes off on the side of a road someplace, pulling their pants down, exposing their genitals, searching them without probable cause or a warrant, it's just not lawful,” Bullman said. He said he believes it’s a widespread, accepted practice within the department.

The city and the department say it is their policy not to comment on pending litigation.

Their attorney, Harvey Gray, sent a brief statement saying, “The claims will be vigorously defended and we believe that all of the claims asserted in the complaint lack merit.”

"Just because you have a gun and a badge, you can't do what you want to do," said Andrew Hastings. Hastings says he was pulled over at a DUI checkpoint.

He said he blew 0.00 on a Breathalyzer, but officers searched his person and vehicle anyway. He said ultimately the officers found two empty beer cans and arrested him for violating the open container law. He says the officers also said they found a small amount of marijuana.

Hastings is the only plaintiff to accept a plea deal on his charges, he says based on legal advice at the time.

The charges against every other plaintiff were ultimately dismissed."No one should have to go through that at all,” said Terry Philips.

WSBTV