Canadian charges abuse by U.S. guard
A 46-year-old Canadian woman sued two unidentified female U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Wednesday, saying one of them strip-searched and groped her without justification as the other one watched at the Ambassador Bridge last March.
Loretta Van Beek of Stratford, Ontario, who said she travels to the U.S. regularly to vacation in Georgia, said agents sent her to secondary inspection because she failed to declare raspberries.
She said agents questioned her during a two-hour session, then ordered her to strip. She said one agent aggressively groped her breasts and genital area for an extended period of time while the other watched. Then they photographed and fingerprinted her and sent her back to Canada, the suit said.
Her lawyer, S. Thomas Wienner of Rochester, said she was traumatized by the incident and wants to find out whether there are other victims.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it couldn't comment on pending litigation.
Complaint
15. After another prolonged waiting period, Doe and Roe ordered Plaintiff to accompany them down a hallway. Doe and Roe escorted Plaintiff into a windowless concrete cell with a deadbolt door lock and chained door handle.
17. Roe informed Plaintiff that her denial of entry into the United States required that she be fingerprinted. Roe stated that she and Doe needed to search Plaintiff prior to fingerprinting in order to protect themselves. Roe then ordered Plaintiff to strip off all of her clothing other than a white cotton camisole and her pants. Plaintiff complied with Roe’s order.
18. After Plaintiff removed her clothing as instructed, Roe ordered Plaintiff to lean against one of the cell’s walls and to spread her arms and legs. Roe then aggressively grabbed and twisted Plaintiff’s nipples and breasts for an extended period of time. When Plaintiff flinched, Roe shouted at her to remain facing the wall and continued to roughly squeeze and twist Plaintiff’s breasts.
19. Roe proceeded to run her hands over Plaintiff’s arms, torso, abdomen, buttocks, pelvis, thighs, calves and ankles. Roe then informed Plaintiff that she was about to “get intimate.”
20. Roe then forced her hand into Plaintiff’s genital area in such a manner that Plaintiff’s undergarments were pushed inside her genitalia.
21. Throughout Roe’s touching of Plaintiff’s breasts and genitals, Doe remained in the cell observing Roe’s actions.
22. After Roe finished aggressively touching Plaintiff’s breasts and genitalia, Plaintiff was ordered to remove her boots for a search. Plaintiff observed that neither Doe nor Roe made any attempt to search inside her footwear.
Think that's unusual?
Cop's 'strip search' costs city $350,000
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Nov. 25 (UPI) -- The city of Scottsdale agreed to pay $350,000 to a woman who contended she was illegally strip searched by a police officer who responded to a call at her home.
The officer, who resigned last year after confessing to internal affairs detectives, is currently being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Arizona Republic reported.
The 19-year-old woman told police that Officer Chong Kim responded to her apartment after she had called police. She said Kim asked if she could search the premises and then asked her to lift her dress and pull down her bra and panties.
She told investigators she did not protest because she had been drinking and feared she might be arrested.
The Republic said Kim told the internal-affairs investigators he had made the same request to 15-20 other women during his time on the police force.
And this...
Woman's suit for false jailing nears trial
ORLANDO, Fla., Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A lawsuit filed by a Florida woman wrongly jailed for a day eight years ago in an identity theft foul-up may be getting close to trial, records show.
Kimberly Shields, who at the time of the 2002 identity-theft incident was a 23-year-old resident of Winter Park, had a pretrial conference scheduled Tuesday and her suit is tentatively scheduled to go to trial Sept. 27 in a Seminole County court, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Shields was locked in a Seminole County jail, strip searched and deloused after she was picked up on an arrest warrant meant for another woman, Shannon McGuire, 38, who had given Shields's name when she was arrested for stealing a 1987 Plymouth, the Sentinel reported Tuesday.
McGuire was charged with auto theft, pleaded no contest and was put on three years' probation -- all under Shields's name, the Sentinel reported.
The day Shields was held in jail, McGuire was in a state prison serving an eight-year sentence for a series of crimes in Pinellas County.
Shields says -- and the Sentinel reported sheriff's office fax records and phone records show -- she was held for more than 24 hours, but the sheriff's office employee who found the error says it was 4-7 hours.
"I was held there when they knew it was not me, then I was strip searched and treated like one of the inmates," said Shields, who said she doesn't know how McGuire got her name.
Instead of suing Seminole, Shields should thank its employees for "doing a great job" in discovering the error and giving the information to a judge, who ordered Shields's release April 25, 2002, the day after her arrest, defense attorney Tom Poulton said.
"Jail is not fun. I'd hate for anyone to have to go there, especially if you know you're innocent," Shields said, observing that identity theft can do a lot more harm than merely ruining one's credit.
This is what happens when too many sheeple fail to fight traffic tickets.
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