Two women are filing a lawsuit after being subjected to roadside body cavity searches by Texas State Troopers.

The searches were performed during  routine traffic stops by female officers. And though the practice seems outrageous, it’s being asserted by lawyers and civil rights advocates that roadside cavity searches are actually standard policy in Texas.

Victims Angel and Ashley Dobbs recounted their harrowing story:

From the NY Daily News:

He told the women they had thrown cigarette butts out of the car’s  windows. That wasn’t true, Dobbs said, but she didn’t argue. A long series of questions followed: Where were they going? Who were they going to see? Why were they going? Why was her niece with her?

Then he said he smelled marijuana. The women denied having any. He took the women’s IDs and went to his patrol car.

“He was back there for like 25 minutes,” Dobbs said. “My niece said ‘What’s taking him so long?’”

They were ordered out of the car and told to stand in a field by the roadside. Farrell told them he had called for a female office to come and search them, Dobbs said.

“Do you have anything in your socks? In your shoes? In your underwear?” Dobbs said she was asked. Then trooper Kelley Helleson showed up.

At this point Dobbs started protesting, saying the situation was ridiculous and that she had no drugs and had done nothing wrong. The female officer told her to “shut up and turn around,” Dobbs said.

She did as she was told. Then the trooper’s gloved hand went down her sweat pants in the back and in the front.

The trooper’s attorney has said there was no penetration and that both women submitted to the searches.

Dobbs disagrees: “She knows there was penetration. On both sides. Along the side of the road. She knows what she did.”

Read more at the NY Daily News

 

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