Mount Vernon police accused of illegal strip searches by DOJ

 

2024 might be on it’s way out the door but it’s never too late to hold police officers and their departments accountable for violating their oaths and the civil rights of the citizens their swore to protect.

According to new reporting by APNews, the United States Department of Justice has accused the Mount Vernon Police Department of a “pattern and practice” of illegal arrests and illegal strip searches. One such case involved a 65-year-old woman and a 75-year-old woman who were falsely accused of buying drugs, arrested, and forced to submit to a nude frisk being told to “bend over and cough.” An internal investigation into that arrest found that the officers lied about the women buying drugs.

The DOJ report also noted that up until the fall of 2022, MVPD was conducting strip searches on every single person they arrested and even forced people who were not arrested to be strip searched. People were also arrested for verbally criticizing officers behavior. Abuses of power had run amok.

In another egregious violation of civil rights, MVPD is accused of detaining a mother whose daughter had been hit by a stray bullet. The anguished woman was subjected to interrogation without cause or explanation. Her daughter died while she was in illegal custody.

These are the police who conservatives demand that you to bow before and lick their boots. These are the “blue lives” that “matter” more than innocent people.

NWA was right.