Atlanta Faces Federal Strip Search Suit

By Charles Edwards

Atlanta, GA – An illegal strip search in public.

That's what 14 current or former Atlanta Police Department officers allegedly did to five young black men. The men today filed a federal lawsuit against the officers and the city of Atlanta.

In March 2010, Trenton Boyd says he was driving to a restaurant in the city's West End neighborhood for lunch. That when, he says, an officer, from what was at the time Atlanta's Red Dog unit, approached him.

"He pulled my pants down and then after that went into my boxers. He pulled my boxers down and went into my boxers around my genitalia area and back around to my anus area," said Boyd.

Two months later, Kaci Daniel says 3 APD officers told him and his cousin Antonio to get out of their car, which he says was parked at a mall in West Atlanta.

"So, he pulled me out the car," said Kaci Daniel. "He's pulling my pants down pulling my boxers down grab my testicles dug in my butt cheek."

Two years earlier, Jason Walker says an APD officer pulled him over near an apartment complex also in West Atlanta. Besides claims of illegal strip searches, Jason Walker, Kaci and Antonio Daniel as well as Trenton Boyd have something in common. They're young, black and were in West Atlanta. But Dan Grossman says that's not all.

"None of these people were charged with a crime with the exception of one man who was charged with having a broken tail light," said Grossman.

Grossman is one of the attorneys representing the men in their federal lawsuit. He was also the lead attorney in the Atlanta Eagle case. In 2009, officers botched a raid of the midtown gay bar. Grossman says he's pushing for police accountability.

"We hope that it will encourage the police department to begin discipline cops who break the law," said Grossman.

In a statement released this afternoon by the Mayor's communications office, he says,

"While I cannot comment on the specific claims made in the federal lawsuit filed today, I can say that I take every allegation about police misconduct very seriously."