Atlanta police don't routinely conduct roadside strip searches on suspects, despite the city's decision in March to spend $1 million to settle several lawsuits from plaintiffs who complained about such examinations, city attorneys said.
In a recently filed response to yet another suit over the controversial searches, the city's lawyers denied over and over that there was a common and well-known practice of APD officers conducting public strip searches, including body cavities.
"APD did not and does not have a practice or policy to strip-search persons without reasonable suspicion or probable cause, and the city has never admitted any such practice or policy in any lawsuit," an emailed statement on the suit said. " The city’s response to the lawsuit distinguishes between conduct by individual officers in violation of policy and conduct by the APD as a whole."
In March, the city of Atlanta agreed to spend almost $1 million to settle several lawsuits accusing police of roadside strip searches. The latest lawsuit was brought by Ricky Sampson, who says Atlanta police officers violated his basic constitutional protections from illegal searches.
"The primary issue in the Sampson lawsuit is whether the alleged strip-search incident at issue actually occurred. Open questions remain... The city will continue to investigate the facts to determine whether the evidence warrants a settlement or whether the case should go to trial. The City cannot settle cases based on mere allegations," the Law Department said in the email
Problems within APD are continuing to cost taxpayers, according to Sampson’s attorney, who has successfully filed other lawsuits concerning public strip searches.
“How in the world can they deny … that there is a pattern and practice of illegal strip searches in the Atlanta Police Department … when they have already paid nearly $1 million in settlements?” attorney Mark Bullman asked Tuesday.
So far, Atlanta taxpayers have spent $2.6 million, plus legal fees, since December 2010 to resolve lawsuits about searches.
Still, Georgia State University law professor Kelly Timmons said, it’s common for defense attorneys in civil cases to initially deny all claims in a lawsuit, even if those same problems have been acknowledged in other instances.
“The fact that these settlements have happened in the past... isn’t enough to say this onewould be successful as well,” Timmons said.
But if Sampson wins his case, the city would have to pay his two lawyers $450 an hour each, Bullman said.
“At some point, the city’s got to decide who they represent," said Tiffany Williams Roberts with the police watchdog group Building Locally to Organize for Community Safety.
She said the question is "whether they are working in favor of the people in Atlanta, who deserve quality policing, or whether they will continue to cost taxpayers money by, one, refusing to fix the problem in APD and, two, to continue to litigate issues that have been settled.”
The city said in an email that APD already offers training on proper search procedures and "constant re-training" that goes beyond what the state requires.
Sampson said in his suit filed Feb. 16 that he was meeting his girlfriend near West End Mall when five officers, then assigned to a now-disbanded street-level drug unit, jumped out of a car and grabbed him. Sampson said the former RED DOG officers checked his pockets and ran their hands over the outside of his clothing, and then one of them pulled down his pants and boxer shorts. Sampson's girlfriend, relatives and other spectators watched as officers conducted a body cavity search and “inspected” his genitals, according to the suit.
Two of the officers named in the suit are still on the force. Two others have moved out of state. APD fired the fifth officer last year, accusing him of lying about a 2009 raid at a Midtown gay bar. He has since joined the Clayton County Sheriff's Office. All five officers were named in one or more of the 10 settled strip search lawsuits.
“The policy of conducting strip and/or body cavity searches in public was widespread and well-known within the APD and so widely tolerated that Atlanta police officers openly described these searches in their own publicly-available incident reports,” the suit said. “This policy was tolerated, condoned and acquiesced to by senior policy makers in APD, and this was a moving force behind the conduct.”
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