CBS Atlanta 46Young men sue Atlanta police over strip searches

Five young men are expected to formally announce Tuesday that they have filed a federal lawsuit accusing Atlanta police officers of illegal searches and false imprisonment.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, claims that officers strip searched innocent young men and sexually touched their private parts.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, the city of Atlanta and 14 officers were individually named in the lawsuit.

Chief Investigative Reporter Wendy Saltzman originally broke the story and documented more than a dozen cases where Atlanta police officers were accused of illegally searching innocent people. Records showed cases of officers pulling down a person's pants and in some cases, touching their private parts without gloves on.

A $200,000 case was settled with the city for an illegal search earlier this month. 

For the first time, three alleged victims, Kacy Daniel, Olajuwan Wilson and Jason Walker, spoke out only to CBS Atlanta News about the abuse they said they suffered at the hands of the officers.

"It felt like somebody getting raped, basically," Daniel said.  

"I felt violated because he went in my private area," Wilson said.

"I was just thinking in my head, like what did I do to deserve this?" Walker said.  "I wouldn't even treat my worst enemy like this."

All three alleged victims told CBS Atlanta similar stories about being strip searched on the side of the road by officers who were sworn to protect them.

"It is sexually assaulting people to take their pants down and touch them in private areas," said Mark Bullman, a former police officer who's now an attorney.

Bullman said Atlanta police are terrorizing innocent people.

"These young men that you have been talking to, they all have clean records," Bullman said.  "They have never so much as gotten a parking ticket."

Wilson was 17 when he was stopped by officers from Atlanta's now disbanded Red Dog unit. He said he was at a northwest Atlanta convenience store buying juice.

"He unbuckles my pants, goes inside my pants, goes up under my genital area and looks for drugs," Wilson explained to CBS Atlanta.

According to police records, the officers beat Wilson and strip searched him twice, accusing him of being a drug dealer.  But the officers found nothing during the search -- no drugs and no contraband.

"They violated my rights again," Wilson said.  "They go in my pants again, my buttocks area again. They treat me like an animal."

Kacy Daniel told a similar story.

"He touched me. He grabbed my testicles and lifted them up," Daniel said. "He didn't have on no gloves, either."

Daniel said he was sitting in a car with his cousin listening to gospel music when police approached him with guns drawn.

"He was like, 'You think I'm playing with you? Put your hands up. I'll put a bullet in your head. This ain't no movie. This ain't no DVD or none of that,'" Daniel said.

Daniel said the officers then pulled down his pants in a store parking lot as people walked by and laughed.

"He unbuttoned my pants and my pants fell all the way down to the ground," Daniel said.

The search, Daniel explained, was humiliating and sexual.

"The way he touched me, it was more like, 'I'm gonna make you mine,'" Daniel said.  "He picked up my testicles like he's trying to size it or something."

Jason Walker told CBS Atlanta he questioned the officer who he said assaulted him.

"He just yanked down my pants and just searched me," Walker said. "And I asked him, 'What are you doing, sir? Why are you doing this, sir?'"

All three victims were strip-searched without gloves, and Bullman said it was without cause.

"There was no justification for taking the people's pants off and searching them in their private areas on the side of the road in the middle of streets, across from malls," Bullman said.

Atlanta Police Chief George Turner denied there was any pattern or practice of his officers conducting illegal strip searches, in spite of the evidence that CBS Atlanta presented to him.

"Are you aware of your officers doing this?" Saltzman asked the chief.

"I am aware of the cases that have been brought to my attention, and we have dealt with those, in my opinion, very thoroughly and complete," Turner replied.

So far, there has been no disciplinary action taken against any of the officers for breaking the Atlanta Police Department's own rules.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit plan to hold a press conference Tuesday morning in downtown Atlanta to discuss the suit.

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