St. Louis police pulled a car over for making a U-turn, forcing a passenger out of the car, handcuffing her, then pulling her pants and underwear down as an officer probed her vagina for drugs with gloved fingers.
No drugs were found inside Kayla Robinson’s vagina, but she was still arrested on two counts of drug possession because she had already handed them a bag of weed.
But Detective Angela Hawkins believed Robinson had crack cocaine that she was not handing over. And the award-winning officer was sure the crack was hidden inside her vagina.
Robinson, who at the time was studying criminal justice to become a cop, pleaded with the officer to transport her to a police station where the vaginal probe could take place in private.
But Hawkins insisted it take place in a nearby parking lot in the presence of a male officer, who brought the female officer the gloves needed for the procedure.
Hawkins ended up disciplined by internal affairs and now she is being sued by Robinson.
According to the Riverfront Times:
A female officer with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department allegedly probed the inside of a black waitress’ vagina while a male officer watched — leading to discipline for the female officer and, now, a lawsuit in federal court.
The lawsuit, filed in November by attorney Jeremy Hollingshead, alleges that detective Angela Hawkins handcuffed 24-year-old Kayla Robinson after she was a passenger in a car during a routine traffic stop in 2012. Hawkins allegedly pushed the young woman up against a tractor-trailer and demanded to know where “the dope and the guns” were, according to the suit.
But the cavity search turned up no drugs. And Hawkins was later disciplined for her actions, the suit says.
From the lawsuit:
Defendant Hawkins put the gloves on, turned Plaintiff around so as to face the male officer, and began unbuttoning Plaintiff’s pants. At this time, Plaintiff was crying hysterically and begging Defendant Hawkins to take her to jail and search her there. … Defendant Hawkins instead forced Plaintiff to bend over and placed her fingers inside Plaintiff’s vagina. … After finding no drugs on Plaintiff during the course of this unreasonable and unlawful search, Defendant Hawkins fastened Plaintiff’s pants and slammed her with excessive force into the parked trailer.
The incident took place on October 19, 2012 after a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game when police spotted a car making a U-turn, theorizing it did so to avoid a police checkpoint.
While police were searching the car and its occupants for drugs and guns, Hawkins claimed she spotted Robinson trying to hide a bag of weed in her underwear while trying to hide crack cocaine under her left foot.
Although she was booked on two counts of drug possession, prosecutors never followed through on those charges, and Robinson’s lawyer said no crack cocaine was ever found.
Robinson filed an internal affairs complaint and after a three-year investigation, police determined that the cop acted out of line, informing Robinson that she had been “disciplined.”
But they did not provide details on what type of discipline she received, which indicates she was probably just reprimanded.
Meanwhile, Robinson no longer wants to be a cop, pursuing a career in teaching instead.
“Because of my treatment by the police, I immediately realized that I could not work for a team that treats people differently because of their race,” she wrote in a letter provided to the media by her attorney.
“It break my heart that, since my police encounter, my own five-year-old daughter has told me that she only sees police as taking people to jail, not her friend.”
Hawkins has been a cop for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department since 2006, receiving three awards, including an “Officer of the Month” award, according to her LinkedIn page.
She also won a medal of valor presented to her by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon in 2013.
Last year, a Texas grand jury indicted two Harris County sheriff’s deputies for misdemeanor official misconduct after probing a woman’s vagina for marijuana during another routine traffic stop.
A 2013 incident in Texas where cops searched a woman’s vagina for marijuana resulted in a state law determining body cavity searches are unconstitutional without a search warrant.
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