A grandmother is suing the Baton Rouge Police Department (BRPD) after she was allegedly “sexually humiliated” in a “torture warehouse” after a traffic stop, she claims in a lawsuit as the department reeled from the fallout from the now-shuttered facility.
The department faced more compound scrutiny after the FBI opened a civil rights investigation into the facility dubbed “Brave Cave,” stemming from lawsuits filed by Ternell Brown and Jeremy Lee in September and August, respectively.
Four officers face criminal charges stemming from the investigation.
Brown, 47, claims she was “sexually humiliated” during an unnecessary strip and body cavity search at the facility on June 10.
Lee, who allegedly resisted arrest when he was taken to the warehouse on Jan. 9, was allegedly beaten so badly that “the local jail refused to admit him until he was treated by a nearby hospital,” according to his lawsuit.
Fox News Digital could not obtain an incident report from the Baton Rouge Police Department at press time.
Ryan Thompson, one of the attorneys representing Brown in his suit, told Fox News Digital that “there are still reports [of alleged abuse in the torture warehouse] come in” to their office; at least one is defensible, he said, and “another lawsuit will be filed on his behalf shortly.”
BRPD Public Information Officer L’Jean McKneely told Fox News Digital that the department is “committed to addressing these troubling allegations and has initiated an administrative and criminal investigation.”
Jeremy Lee is pictured inside a warehouse, known as the “Brave Cave”, located behind the Baton Rouge Police Department’s 1st Precinct. Thompson Institute of Justice
“Chief [Murphy] Paul met with FBI officials and asked for their assistance in ensuring an independent review of this complaint,” McKneely wrote in an email. “The Narcotics Processing Facility has been closed indefinitely and the Street Crimes Unit has been disbanded and reassigned.”
Brown was pulled over because of the tinted windows of his vehicle on June 10, per body camera footage reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Officers asked her and her husband to stand outside the car with their hands on the back hood.
After seeing an open Twisted Tea, they searched the vehicle and found two different types of pills prescribed to Brown kept together in the same bottle.
Brown’s attorneys claimed that their client told officers “at least four times” that the pills were legally prescribed to him and claimed that their combined possession was not illegal.
Jeremy Lee, pictured in body camera footage, was allegedly beaten by officers as he was taken to the “Brave Cave” facility on January 9. Thompson Institute of Justice
Regardless, they wrote, officers “forcefully” took Brown and her husband to the “Cave of the Brave.” There, according to the lawsuit, Brown underwent an illegal strip and body cavity search.
Thompson told Fox News Digital that a medical professional must perform these searches per department policy, a step that was not taken in Brown’s case. A supervisor should be called for the release, and then a warrant must be filed with a judge or magistrate, he said. To do a body cavity search, the attorney said, “something has to be found” to warrant it during a body cavity search, and nothing was found in the searches of Brown and Lee.
“There should be documentation as to why a strip search is needed. I have not seen any documentation as far as the findings and the reasons,” said Thompson.
Attorneys Ternell Brown and Jeremy Lee claim they were taken to the “Brave Cave” — the warehouse pictured here on body camera footage — for hours of questioning and illegal interrogation tactics. Thompson Institute of Justice
In Lee’s case, police took him into a squad car after they executed a warrant on a North Baton Rouge home, where they found Lee sitting on the porch.
Thompson claimed Lee was held in another squad car for “hours” before an officer “put on a certain one [intimidating] rap song”; when they arrived at the warehouse, Thompson said, the officers could be seen removing their body-worn cameras as they led Lee inside.
There, the criminal complaint shows, Lee was allegedly “charged [officers],” Thompson said. Allegedly, one of the officers knocked Lee down with a leg sweep before another officer began kicking him.
Later footage, taken from a body-worn camera placed between one of the officer’s legs, shows a prolonged period of interrogation after the alleged beating.
“All kinds of things – does he know this rapper, are you familiar with this rap group, can you give us any information. It’s intelligence gathering,” Thompson said. “I wouldn’t say that kind of questioning was illegal, but the way it was done was unconstitutional — you have a right to an attorney, you have a right to be Mirandized.”
Both the office of East Baton Rouge Parish Attorney Anderson Dotson, who represents the police department, and the Baton Rouge Police Union declined to comment because of pending litigation.
An FBI investigation into the department is ongoing.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
