Lawsuit: Raleigh police frisked man, then strip-searched man in a vacant commercial space at a strip mall, then abandoned him

The officers later settled out of court for $117,000, which was paid, along with over $90,000 in legal fees, by the city of Raleigh.

On April 3, 2014, two African-American men were stopped by Raleigh police around 11 p.m., on their way to a pool hall. According to a lawsuit that was ultimately settled out of court with the two officers involved in the case, what would happen over the next hour was a case of blatant police misconduct and a violation of civil rights.

The two men, whose names are obscured here to protect their privacy, were stopped by Officer Dennis Riley for an obscured license plate. Soon after, Officer Eric Vigeant also pulled over “to assist Riley.” Although they didn’t say there was any specific violation, they ordered both men — including the passenger — out of the car. When the passenger asked why he also needed to exit the vehicle, Vigeant replied that “‘after 9–11,’ [the police] could do whatever they wanted.”

During the course of being frisked, no “contraband, weapons, or evidence of criminal activity” was found on either man, according to court documents. Afterwards, the police asked the driver for consent to search his vehicle; when he declined, they brought in the K-9 unit. Approximately 30 minutes later, the driver was arrested for “possessing a small quantity of marijuana in his sock.”

The passenger, who later filed the lawsuit, was again frisked. After police found nothing, again, he asked if he was under arrest; when the officers said he wasn’t, he began to walk away, and was then handcuffed for the officers. When he asked why, they responded that “he was just being detained for further search,” and put him in the patrol car with the driver.

The officers then drove the two men to a strip mall “located at or about 4600 Capital Boulevard in Raleigh.” Nothing was open; the officers then took the two men into an “empty commercial space.” Both men “requested that Defendants take them to the jail instead because they did not feel safe.”

Once in the commercial space, they strip-searched the passenger in the car, who had been searched multiple times prior to that with no avail. When the man told the police that he didn’t “feel save removing his clothing in the back room of the vacant office space,” the officers told him that ‘What happens here is your word against ours.’”

They eventually made him get completely naked, “made him bend over and cough, instructed him to lift his penis and scrotum and move each in various directions, and inspected his genitals and anus.” They found nothing; after the man got dressed, they put his friend in the patrol car and left, without giving him any means of transportation out of the strip mall. It was around midnight.

At no point was the man charged, and all charges were dropped against the driver of the car.

Three days later, the man filed a complaint with the Raleigh police department; two months later, RPD told the man that his complaint was “sustained,” meaning that the officers violated department policy regarding searches and seizures.

The man who was strip-searched filed a lawsuit against Raleigh police in state court in November of 2015, and the case was reassigned to federal court in December 2015. In July, the court, having “been advised that the parties have settled all matters in controversy among them,” dismissed the case. A public records request found that the city of Raleigh, based on a policy from 1987 to defend and pay for “all law enforcement employees” from any claims made against them, paid $91,584.90 for defense costs and settled with the plaintiff for $117,000.

When asked if Riley and Vigeant were disciplined or let go after this case, a Raleigh police spokesperson replied that they “didn’t have any information on this case” and directed all questions to the city communications office. As of press time, the above settlement costs were the only question answered, but it’s still unknown if the officers are still employed by the department, whether or not they were disciplined, or if they work the same beat they did on the night of the alleged offense.

In 2015, UNC professor Frank Baumgartner released a study of traffic stops that resulted in searches across North Carolina’s thirty largest police departments. He found that African-Americans in Raleigh were 62% more likely to be searched after a traffic stop than whites. For a “vehicle regulatory” violation, which is what the initial obscured license plate would fall under — the complaint disputes that the license plate was obscured, and the driver wasn’t charged for it— African-Americans were 129 percent more likely to be searched.

Read the full complaint here.