No narcotics, contraband found during searches, lawsuit says
By Frank Heinz and Ken Kalthoff: The second of two Texas State troopers at the center of a lawsuit involving a roadside cavity search has been suspended with pay. The two women from Irving are suing Trooper David Farrell, Trooper Kelley Helleson and the director of the Department of Public Safety for what they call an unconstitutional search without probable cause.
On Thursday, the DPS said Farrell had been suspended with pay effective Dec. 21 pending the outcome of an investigation into the incident. Helleson had also been suspended with pay
On July 13, while driving along State
Highway 161, Angel Dobbs and her niece Ashley Dobbs were stopped for
littering by Farrell. In the dashcam video released by the women and
their attorney, Farrell can be heard telling the women they would both
be cited for littering for throwing cigarette butts out of the car.
Farrell then returned to his cruiser
and, in the video, can be heard calling female Trooper Helleson to the
scene to search both women whom he said were acting weird.
While waiting for Helleson to arrive,
Farrell asked Angel Dobbs to step out of the vehicle and began
questioning her about marijuana use. In the video, the trooper is
heard telling Dobbs he smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle while
asking her several times how much pot was in the car.
After Helleson arrived, she can be
seen in the dashcam video putting on blue latex gloves to conduct a
search of both women. According to the lawsuit, when Angel Dobbs asked
about the gloves, Helleson "told her not to worry about that."
In the lawsuit, Dobbs said the
trooper conducted the cavity search on the roadside, illuminated by the
police car's headlights, in full view of any passing motorists.
"This has been an eye-opening
experience for me. I've never been pulled over, never searched like
this. I was totally violated over there a few minutes ago... this is so
embarrassing to me," Angel Dobbs said on the video.
"I've never been so humiliated or so violated or felt so molested in my entire life," Angel Dobbs told NBC 5.
Dobbs said she never gave consent
for the trooper to "frisk, pat-down, search or otherwise touch her" and
that she never gave consent for Farrell to search her vehicle -- which
he can be seen doing in the dashcam video while the cavity search was
under way.
Dobbs said she was powerless to stop
it. "What are you going to say? What's going to happen to you if you
challenge that authority?" she said.
With the cavity search concluded,
Farrell then asked Dobbs about prescription medications found in the
car. Dobbs said they were for her thyroid and for migraines. According
to the lawsuit, Dobbs also suffers from a medical condition that was
irritated by the search.
Meanwhile, Helleson can then be seen performing the same cavity search on Dobbs' niece, Ashley.
"It's because somebody is a daily
smoker in that car. OK, you can attribute it to that," Farrell can be
heard saying on the recording.
The lawsuit further alleges that
Helleson performed searches on both women, touching both their anus and
vaginas, without changing the latex gloves between searches.
"I don't think anybody needs to have
to feel, or go through what we went through," Ashley Dobbs said. "It
crosses my mind every day. It's humiliating," she said.
After searching the entire car and
finding no narcotics, Farrell then administered a DWI test that Dobbs
passed, the lawsuit said. The women were then issued warnings for
littering and released at the scene.
The lawsuit goes on to say that a
bottle of prescribed hydrocodone was missing from Dobbs' car and purse
after the search. The women returned to the scene of the traffic stop
the next day to search for the medication, but it was nowhere to be
found.
Their lawyers say the search was
illegal and a complaint about it was filed in August but that DPS Texas
Rangers who investigated the incident took no action.
"This is outside the constitutional
grounds by a mile. It's not even close," attorney Scott Palmer said.
"This has to stop. These two need to be stopped. There's no telling how
many other people they've done this to and we hope that others come
forward."
Attorney Charles Soechting Jr. said
his father was a DPS trooper and he has great respect for the agency.
"But in this instance they have completely failed the citizens of
Texas," Soechting said.
Soechting said a records request to DPS produced no policy that allows for cavity search of any suspect in public.
"What we're dealing with is a Class C
misdemeanor. It does not justify any type of pat-down, let alone an
invasive search of cavities of women,"” he said.
DPS has not commented on the case.
The women are requesting a trial by
jury and are asking for unspecified, compensatory and exemplary damages
and interest as well as recovery of attorney's fees and court costs.
The Dallas County District Attorney's office told NBC 5 it has received the case and will refer it to a grand jury this month.
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