A suburban New York police department routinely violated residents’ civil rights, including making illegal arrests and using unnecessary strip and cavity searches, says a new U.S. Department of Justice report, the Associated Press reports. The study of a pattern and practice of police misconduct at the department in Mount Vernon, just north of New York City, is one of 12 investigations DOJ opened into local policing agencies since 2021, including those prompted by the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville. No single incident prompted the investigation into Mount Vernon’s 160-officer force. The illegal strip search in 2020 of two women, one age 65 and the other 75, were emblematic of the department’s shortcomings, said the report. Arrested on suspicion of buying drugs, the women had their car search. Officers found nothing, and hauled them into a police station in handcuffs, the report said. Supervisors approved a fully nude strip search by detectives who “told them to bend over and cough.” After an internal investigation found that the officers had lied about the pair buying drugs, those involved were docked a few vacation days.
Until at least the fall of 2022, it was the Mount Vernon force’s practice to strip search every person it arrested, according to the report. Officers also strip-searched people they did not arrest, detained and interrogated people without formally arresting them, and arrested people for verbally criticizing police officers.
Illegal strip and cavity searches continued until at least 2023, DOJ found. The investigators said that while the practice was “curtailed” during its probe, “we are not confident that these practices have ended.” Among a catalog of unconstitutional arrests, DOJ identified a case where officers took the mother of a shooting victim to a police station and interrogated her as her dying daughter was rushed to the hospital. The daughter, struck by a stray bullet, died while her mother was in custody. Officers didn’t articulate probable cause for her detention. The department also suffered from financial mismanagement, which exacerbated human rights violations rooted in illegal policies and lack of training, the report said. It noted that low salaries make it hard to attract and retain quality officers, train staff and pay bills. The report noted that the city is already taking steps to improve its policing. It offered a series of recommendations including implementing measures “to ensure that unconstitutional strip and body cavity searches do not take place.”