*A Baton Rouge family will receive a one-time settlement of $35,000 after officers strip-searched a teenager during a traffic stop.
Here’s more from reason.com:
Baton Rouge Police Department (BRPD) Sergeant Ken Camallo, who had been checking vacant residences while searching for someone suspected of theft, abandoned that mission after seeing a car with out of state plates in front of a “known drug house.” According to BRPD incident reports obtained by Reason, Camallo stopped the car for “suspicious driving.”
Behind the wheel was a woman named Kayleen Butler. Camallo ordered her and her passengers—23-year-old Clarence Green, his 16-year-old brother (whose name is withheld in court documents because he is a minor), another unnamed passenger, and a young female child—to exit the vehicle.
According to the police report, Camallo claimed he “smelled marijuana,” so the officers placed Clarence and his brother in handcuffs. The officers then pulled down their underwear while they stood on the public street, exposing their genitals, and searched for drugs.
The incident occurred on Jan. 1, 2020.
READ MORE: Family of Black Man Who Died in South Carolina Jail to Receive $10M Settlement
According to a police report, officers claimed they found a firearm on Green and weed on the 16-year-old. When they drove the brothers home to release the teen to his mother, she wasn’t home, so the officers searched the residence without a warrant, as reported by Complex.
Green was on probation for Oxycodone possession at the time, which meant he wasn’t allowed to carry a firearm. He was arrested and jailed for five months before the charges were dropped.
The family filed federal lawsuit against the city, the police department and the officers who strip-searched the Black males on the public street. The complaint was dismissed last week after the East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council agreed to pay a $35,000 settlement.
Camallo remains on duty but is at the center of an ongoing investigation, according to the report.
“While the involved individuals have received a civil remedy in this matter, the officers involved must be held accountable,” East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said in a statement. “We take all actions of this sort very seriously. We cannot go down a path that continues to tear at the fabric of trust between law enforcement and citizens.”
Watch the bodycam footage above.
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