A Brooklyn woman alleged this week that she was unlawfully strip searched by a female NYPD officer after she jumped a turnstile during a 2014 incident.
Tynneal Grant, 33, testified about her traumatic run in with Officer Shaquanna White in June 2014 during a departmental trial on Friday. Grant said that the incident was sparked when she accidentally swiped to get onto the Manhattan-bound platform of the Nostrand Avenue subway station just before midnight on June 2nd.
According to the Times, a clerk sent her to the Far Rockaway platform "with the promise that someone there would help her get through without having to pay again." When no one appeared, she hopped the turnstile, which is when she crossed paths with White.
White took her to Transit Bureau District 30 station house, and told her to lift her shirt and unzip her pants. When Grant objected—she wasn't wearing a bra—White told her, "If you don’t I will." The Times explains that Civilian Complaint Review Board prosecutor Heather Cook went after White:
Ms. Cook argued that those actions constituted a strip search, which the department’s patrol guide defines as “any search in which an individual’s undergarments (e.g., bra, underwear, etc.) and/or private areas are exposed.” The patrol guide says “a strip search of a prisoner may not be conducted routinely in connection with an arrest,” but rather only in situations where an officer reasonably suspects that a prisoner is hiding weapons or contraband. In a routine search, officers are instructed to check pockets and slide their hands across someone’s clothes.
Officer White, in her testimony, said that she did not suspect that Ms. Grant had anything dangerous. But she said that she typically had women shake out their bras during routine searches to make sure nothing was hidden there. When Ms. Grant said she was not wearing one, “I told her that I need to see,” Officer White testified.
White's lawyer argued that she never had any physical contact with the suspect, and was only doing her job: "God forbid police officers do their job. I guess if Officer White had control of gravity they [overalls] wouldn’t have fallen,” he said.
But Cook countered that White "has been violating the women" for years through misunderstanding what constitutes a lawful strip search: "Fear humiliation, shame— that is what this case is about," she said. "This is a straightforward case of a veteran officer who should’ve known better."
Grant was ultimately released without charges from the turnstile incident. The judge in White's case will make a recommendation to Police Commissioner Bratton about whether she should be reprimanded for the incident.
