*A St. Louis cop and her entire department will hopefully be sued by a young woman who was subjected to a vaginal search on the road after being pulled over for an illegal U-turn. I just got pulled over for the same thing…though I’m still investigating what was ‘illegal’ about it!?I mean really, where will this sh*t end? I am personally sick of writing stories about police officers who abuse their badge. I am sick of hearing these stories, because I hate that they exist.?But they do, dammit. They always have, and unfortunately, they most likely always will.
Of course the victim was a Black woman, and the offensive cop was white. The incident happened in 2012. Kayla Robinson, 24, was driving a car carrying herself and two friends. According to Hawkins, the illegal U-turn was made in order to avoid a police checkpoint. The officer said she witnessed Robinson attempt to hide a bag of weed in her underwear, and a small rock of crack with her foot.
As it turns out, Robinson did turn over a bag of marijuana, but told the officer she didn’t have any crack. Dissatisfied, the female officer told the woman she would be searched, and called for backup to bring her a pair of rubber gloves.
A male officer showed up and watched as Robinson, begging to be taken to the station for the search, was forcibly shoved against the car and humiliated as the cop searched her vagina.
To no avail. No crack.?So what does an officer do?
Arrest you.?
Why do I always expect better?from a female cop??Now I’m no dummy. Yes, the woman had marijuana on her. Perhaps that was why she was arrested. But here’s the thing. Just consider it, OK? If marijuana was going to get her arrested?anyway, why didn’t that happen automatically? Then they’d be at the station, where a cavity search could take place.
Am I making a bit too much sense here?
Robinson was initially arrested on two counts of drug suspicion, but lo and behold, no charges were filed. The victim was not going to let the fact that she was manhandled and humiliated go so she filed a complaint with the Dept. of Internal Affairs division of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police dept.
A lot of good that did. Three years would pass before Robinson would get a reply.
…a reply that simply said the cop had been ‘disciplined.’ No further details on how? When? A breakdown of the reason…nothing! Now of course we know why the officer should have been disciplined, but we want them to do as we tell our children:?USE YOUR WORDS?in this particular instance.
Robinson filed her lawsuit against the police department in November.
Attorney Jeremy Hollingshead has taken on Robinson’s case?and says he hopes that this will bring changes to the police department.
“This is one of the most corrupt police departments in the country. They just don’t learn,” ?he told the Riverfront Times. “I know Kayla’s hope is that is that a jury finally hits the city with a big enough number so the city says ‘OK, fine. We?re going to stop doing this.'”
At the time of the incident, Robinson – who is black – was studying criminal justice in hopes of becoming a police officer herself, but she has since changed her career plans to become a teacher.
‘Because of my treatment by the police, I immediately realized that I could not work for a team that treats people differently because of their race,’ Robinson said. ‘It breaks my heart that, since my police encounter, my own five-year-old daughter has told me that she only sees police as taking people to jail, not her friend.’
Attorney?Hollingshead also had this to say about what St. Louis police did :
?They do it every single day. They target African-Americans, oftentimes from northern areas of the city, and they try to shake them down. They make false allegations, threats against them, and their hope is that somebody is going to be weak enough to roll over and provide information to them.?
No further statement from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, who used their words in this instance to read ?pending litigation.?
