At the stationhouse, they were ordered to remove their sneakers and socks. Gripped with fear, Petteway was sent into the bathroom, where a female officer told her to strip. "After I took everything off, she told me to squat and cough. I said, 'You want me to do what?!'"
The police found nothing illegal. But hours later, the teens were brought to Central Booking. There, Petteway was again strip-searched.
NYPD regulations allow strip searches only for serious felony cases where officers believe the suspect is extremely violent, or carrying concealed drugs or weapons. This was clearly not that kind of situation. With help from Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, Petteway later sued the city for violating her civil rights. In 2003 she settled out of court for $50,000.
New York has been paying a high price for such incidents. In 2001, the city agreed to pay $50 million to 50,000 people erroneously strip-searched during 1996 and 1997. In 2002, the last year for which figures are available, New York City paid out $78.7 million for judgments and settlements in 561 "police action" lawsuits, about 85 percent of which alleged misconduct. Strip-search suits typically cost the city $20,000 to $75,000 apiece, according to civil rights attorney Ronald Kuby.
These events took place during the Giuliani administration, which often encouraged police to violate civilians' rights in the name of crime fighting. But though the problem of police misconduct has ebbed since then, it isn't going away.
Last May, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) issued a report noting dozens of improper strip searches that had occurred since 2002, and warning that city police were not being properly trained. In one instance cited in the report, officers from the 13th Precinct approached a young woman who was playing her car radio loudly in the early morning hours on a street in lower Manhattan. When she failed to produce her driver's license, she was taken to the station house and strip-searched.
The CCRB report recommends that the NYPD improve its instruction on search procedures. The police department has responded by developing a video on the subject for use at the academy, where new officers are trained.
But the NYPD does not have a way to make sure wayward cops get straightened out once they've joined the force. There's no formal oversight or individualized re-education. And there's no effort to make sure officers retain the procedure updates they receive in memos from the NYPD legal bureau. Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of Police Studies and Law at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, cautions that even the most proficient veterans need reinforcement. "Anyone can forget something six months after learning it," he says.
Cadets at the Police Academy learn the rules from the patrol guide--a little red book containing all the procedures they need to know. To graduate, they have to take four multiple-choice exams, with 100 questions apiece, on topics ranging from behavioral science to the rules regarding arrest and questioning. They can pass each by answering just 70 questions correctly. New officers never find out what they got wrong. That's a precaution against future test takers finding out what's on the exam--but it also means rookies are never set straight even when they plainly don't know the rules.
