World Courant
A grandmother is suing the Baton Rouge Police Division (BRPD) after allegedly being “sexually humiliated” inside a “torture warehouse” after a visitors cease, she claims in a lawsuit because the division reels from the fallout of the now-shuttered facility.
The division is dealing with compounding scrutiny after the FBI opened a civil rights investigation right into a facility nicknamed the “Courageous Cave,” stemming from lawsuits filed by Ternell Brown and Jeremy Lee in September and August, respectively.
4 officers are dealing with legal expenses stemming from that investigation.
Brown, 47, claims she was “sexually humiliated” throughout pointless strip and physique cavity searches within the facility on June 10.
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Attorneys for Ternell Brown and Jeremy Lee allege they had been taken to the “Courageous Cave” – the warehouse pictured right here on physique digicam footage – for hours of questioning and unlawful interrogation ways. The ability has since been shuttered after the lawsuits had been filed, and the division’s Avenue Crimes Unit that used it as a “residence base” has since been reassigned. (Thompson Justice Institute)
Lee, who was charged with resisting arrest when he was taken to the warehouse on Jan. 9, was allegedly crushed so badly that “the native jail refused to confess him till he was handled by a close-by hospital,” in accordance with his lawsuit.
Fox Information Digital couldn’t receive incident experiences from the Baton Rouge Police Division at press time.
Ryan Thompson, one of many attorneys representing Brown in her go well with, informed Fox Information Digital that “there are nonetheless experiences [of alleged abuse in the torture warehouse] coming in” to their workplace; a minimum of one is tenable, he stated, and “one other lawsuit might be filed on his behalf very quickly.”
BRPD Public Info Officer L’Jean McKneely informed Fox Information Digital that the division “is dedicated to addressing these troubling accusations and has initiated administrative and legal investigations.”
“Chief [Murphy] Paul met with FBI officers and requested their help to make sure an unbiased assessment of those complaints,” McKneely wrote in an electronic mail. “The Narcotics Processing Facility has been completely closed and the Avenue Crimes Unit has been disbanded and reassigned.”
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Jeremy Lee, pictured in physique digicam footage, was allegedly crushed by officers when he was taken to the “Courageous Cave” facility on Jan. 9. He’s suing the division and three officers; in the meantime, the division has charged him with resisting arrest. (Thompson Justice Institute)
The investigation additionally implicated 4 officers for utilizing a Taser, placing a nude man and utilizing extreme drive within the means of a strip search carried out in a police division toilet and caught on physique digicam footage, police stated in a Friday press convention. The officers allegedly reviewed the footage after the incident, then devised a plan to stop the video from being reviewed.
In Lee’s case, Thompson stated, the officer “pulls down [Lee’s] boxers so you possibly can see his underwear” as he’s being transferred from one car to a different.
In response to the lawsuit, officers used the “Courageous Cave” as a “residence base” to “take suspects to interrogate them, collect intelligence, and try and ‘flip’ them to start cooperating with BRPD.”
The “narcotics processing facility” the place “hundreds of suspects have been processed” over the past 20 years – together with about 350 this yr, per Administrative Chief Myron Daniels – was shuttered by the Baton Rouge mayor.
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Jeremy Lee is pictured within the warehouse, often known as the “Courageous Cave,” positioned behind the Baton Rouge Police Division’s First Precinct. (Thompson Justice Institute)
Brown was pulled over for her car’s window tint on June 10, per physique digicam footage reviewed by Fox Information Digital. Officers requested her and her husband to face outdoors the automotive with their arms on the again hood. After recognizing an open Twisted Tea, they searched the car and located two several types of drugs prescribed to Brown saved collectively in the identical bottle.
Brown’s attorneys allege that their shopper informed officers “a minimum of 4 instances” that the drugs had been legally prescribed to her and declare that their mixed storage just isn’t unlawful.
Regardless, they wrote, officers “forcibly” took Brown and her husband to the “Courageous Cave.” There, per the lawsuit, Brown underwent unlawful strip and physique cavity searches.
Thompson informed Fox Information Digital {that a} medical skilled should execute these searches per division coverage, a measure that was not taken in Brown’s case. A supervisor must be referred to as for clearance, after which a warrant should be filed with a decide or Justice of the Peace, he stated. To carry out a physique cavity search, the lawyer stated, “one thing must be discovered” to warrant it throughout a physique cavity search, and nothing was discovered within the searches of Brown and Lee.
“There may be alleged to be documentation for why a strip search is required. I’ve not seen any documentation so far as the findings and the reasoning,” Thompson stated.
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In Lee’s case, police took him right into a squad automotive after they carried out a warrant on a North Baton Rouge residence, the place they discovered Lee sitting on the porch.
Thompson alleges Lee was held in one other squad automotive for “hours” earlier than an officer “placed on a sure [intimidating] rap track”; after they arrived on the warehouse, Thompson stated, the officers may be seen taking off their body-worn cameras as they ushered Lee inside.
There, a legal grievance exhibits, Lee supposedly “charged at [officers],” Thompson stated. Allegedly, one of many officers knocked Lee down with a leg sweep earlier than different officers started to kick him.
Later footage, taken from a physique worn digicam positioned between one of many officer’s legs, exhibits a protracted interval of questioning after the alleged beating.
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“All forms of issues – does he know this rapper, are you conversant in this rap group, are you able to give us any info. It is intelligence gathering,” Thompson stated. “I’d not say that the forms of questions had been unlawful, however the method through which it was achieved was unconstitutional – you will have a proper to counsel current, you will have a proper to be Mirandized.”
Each the workplace of East Baton Rouge Parish Lawyer Anderson Dotson, who represents the police division, and the Baton Rouge Union of Police declined to remark as a consequence of pending litigation.
The FBI investigation into the division is ongoing.
Grandmother ‘sexually humiliated’ by police in ‘torture warehouse’: lawsuit
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