Public strip search costs ex-Oakland cop $40K

[alp227]

Source: SF Chronicle

A former Oakland police officer must pay $40,000 out of his own pocket to two men who were illegally strip-searched in public and have already been awarded at least $100,000 apiece in damages.

Spencer Troy Lucas and Kirby Bradshaw had their pants pulled down on a busy West Oakland street in 2005 by police after then-Officer Ingo Mayer stopped them for no lawful reason, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel wrote in an August ruling after a bench trial.

In the ruling, the judge ordered the city to pay $105,000 in compensatory damages to Lucas and $100,000 to Bradshaw.

On Friday, the judge ordered Mayer to pay $25,000 to Lucas and $15,000 to Bradshaw. "She thought it was important to send a message to penalize this officer for his flagrant violation of constitutional rights," the men's attorney, Michael Haddad, said Monday.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/07/BADU1LRQ0A.DTL

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After the Scott Olsen case, this is the 2nd resolved lawsuit over police brutality and misconduct. Previously the city settled with a man for $22,000 after his teeth were broken during a traffic stop.

[nineteen50]

1. If he had been a corporation his fine would have been

27 cents.

[Dawson Leery]

2. A cop actually had to pay a lawsuit settlement out of his own pocket!

About time!

[ThomCat]

4. It would be nice if this became a trend.

Any cop who breaks the law should have to personally pay a cost for it.

It would be nice if that cost was jail time, but hitting them in the wallet will send a message too.

[Dawson Leery]

6. They should pay all liabilities from their own pocket.

This should be the standard.

[SoapBox]

3. And this is one of how many, that should be fined in the same way?

No, not all cops are dirty...but they are out there.

[bigmonkey]

5. Cop violence is often condoned.

The framework, at least around here, is that at the moment the cop was fearful for his or her safety. Clearly, however, paying a huge fine later is not a safety matter. Could this work out fairly well, if it becomes a trend? Could the prospect of heavy fines make police think a little bit more clearly, or are we now going to hear that huge fines are an existential threat to cops, just like cell phones and cameras?