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Two Irving, Texas, women are suing two Texas State Troopers and the director of the Department of Public Safety after they say they were violated during roadside cavity searches in full view of the public and without probable cause.
On July 13, while driving along state Highway 161, Angel Dobbs and her niece Ashley Dobbs were stopped for littering by Trooper David Ferrell. In the dashcam video released by the women and their attorney, Ferrell can be heard telling the women they would both be cited for littering for throwing cigarette butts out of the car.
Farrell then returned to his cruiser and, in the video, can be heard calling female trooper Kelley Helleson to the scene to search both women whom he said were acting weird.
While waiting for Helleson to arrive, Farrell asked Angel Dobbs to step out of the vehicle and began questioning her about marijuana use. In the video, the Trooper is heard telling Dobbs he smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle while asking her several times how much pot was in the car.
Farrell: How much marijuana is in that car? And don't lie to me.
Angel Dobbs: I don't smoke marijuana.
Farrell: OK, how much marijuana is in that car? That's my question.
Dobbs: I swear to God, I don't smoke marijuana.
Farrell: I'm not asking you if you smoke it.
Dobbs: I don't think there is any marijuana in that car.
Farrell: OK, when was the last time somebody smoked marijuana in that car?
Dobbs: I honestly don't know. It's my boyfriend's car. So, I just borrowed it.
Farrell: There's an odor of marijuana coming from the car and that's why I've got to talk to you further about it. Um, and the more upfront you are the better it's going to go for you. So, you're telling me there's no marijuana in that car?
Dobbs: To the best of my knowledge, no there is not.
Farrell: Is there anything hidden on your person?
Dobbs: On my person?
Farrell: On your person, in your shoes, in your underwear?
Dobbs: No. I feel like I'm being treated like a criminal right now. What's going on?
Farrell: I've got a female trooper up the road, she's going to come down here and we're just going to check a little bit more.
After Helleson arrived, she can be seen in the dashcam video putting on blue latex gloves to conduct a search of both women. According to the lawsuit, when Angel Dobbs asked about the gloves, Helleson "told her not to worry about that.
In the lawsuit, Dobbs said the trooper conducted the cavity search on the roadside, illuminated by the police car's headlights, in full view of any passing motorists.
"This has been an eye-opening experience for me. I've never been pulled over, never searched like this. I was totally violated over there a few minutes ago... this is so embarrassing to me," Angel Dobbs said on the video.
"I've never been so humiliated or so violated or felt so molested in my entire life," Angel Dobbs told NBC 5.
Dobbs said she never gave consent for the trooper to "frisk, pat-down, search, or otherwise touch her" and that she never gave consent for Farrell to search her vehicle -- which he can be seen doing in the dashcam video while the cavity search was under way.
Dobbs said she was powerless to stop it. "What are you going to say? What's going to happen to you if you challenge that authority?" she said.
With the cavity search concluded, Farrell then asked Dobbs about prescription medications found in the car. Dobbs said they were for her thyroid and for migraines. According to the lawsuit, Dobbs also suffers from a medical condition that was irritated by the search.
Meanwhile, Helleson can then be seen performing the same cavity search on Dobbs' niece, Ashley.
"It's because somebody is a daily smoker in that car. OK, you can attribute it to that," Farrell can be heard saying on the recording.
The lawsuit further alleges that Helleson performed searches on both women, touching both their anus and vaginas, without changing the latex gloves between searches.
"I don't think anybody needs to have to feel, or go through what we went through," Ashley Dobbs said. "It crosses my mind every day. It's humiliating."
After searching the entire car and finding no narcotics, Farrell then administered a DWI test which Dobbs passed, the lawsuit said. The women were then issued warnings for littering and released at the scene.
The lawsuit goes on to say that a bottle of prescribed Hydrocodone was missing from Dobbs' car and purse after the search. The women returned to the scene of the traffic stop the next day to search for the medication, but it was nowhere to be found.
Their lawyers say the search was illegal and a complaint about it was filed in August but that DPS Texas Rangers who investigated the incident took no action.
"This is outside the constitutional grounds by a mile. It's not even close," attorney Scott Palmer said. "This has to stop. These two need to be stopped. There's no telling how many other people they've done this to and we hope that others come forward."
Attorney Charles Soechting, Jr. said his father was a DPS trooper and he has great respect for the agency. "But in this instance they have completely failed the citizens of Texas," Soechting said.
Soechting said a records request to DPS produced no policy that allows for cavity searches of any suspect in public.
"What we're dealing with is a Class C Misdemeanor. It does not justify any type of pat down, let alone an invasive search of cavities of women,"” he said.
Calls for comment to the DPS Austin headquarters were not returned Tuesday.
The women are requesting a trial by jury and are asking for unspecified, compensatory and exemplary damages and interest as well as recovery of attorney's fees and court costs.
The Dallas County District Attorney's office tells NBC 5 it has received the case and will refer it to a grand jury in January.
Leave a Comment:
Sounds more like the TSA than a couple of pervert cops getting there nut.
www. dps.texas.gov/OIG/complaint.htm to file a complaint against Trooper David Ferrell and Trooper Kelley Helleson. I wish somebody had a phone number to their superiors office! That'd be great if someone could let us all know who to call :)
The first ten ammendments of our constitution should upheld in all cases and this is a violation of the fourth ammendment. Arresting officers should go back to school. Let us all fight for our constitutional rights.
Trooper Kelley Helleson has been suspended WITH PAY!!! during the investigation. WITH PAY????
That doesn't surprise me , that's how all police and and other corporations deal with @!$%# today. It is like. Hey, Relax! Take a Vacation! Let things cool down, deal with it later. I say B##L S$$t.
the taxpayers in texas are either very rich or just plain stupid. they are footing the bill for all of this nonsense.
These ladies are about to become very rich, as they should. These two cops are about to be fired, as they should.
they should go to prison; this is rape
This is OBVIOUS ABUSE OF AUTHORITY...............Please be aware abuses of the citizens of Texas by Authority Figures OCCUR EVERY DAY and not just by the DPS!!!!!! It is time to stand up for our rights and fight back against this type of abuse. If we stand idly by it will only worsen. Abuse is perpetrated by DEA State Medical Boards Local Police and many others. If you have suffered abuse at the hands of authority figures Please CONTACT an ATTORNEY today!
Too many cops are not educated enough to effectively do their jobs. A 4-year degree is needed to maximize the likelihood that the officers properly act within the law in a way that isn't simply a power trip. I don't know the educational level of the officers in this incident, but I will be good money it was an amount too low. They are operating like cops in the 50's. Times have changed, and now the government is going to have to pay. It's cheaper to pay more for more educated employees.
Maybe these cops just wanted to cop a feel! I hope these women sue the hell out if them! And they end up locked where others can do the same to them against their will!
PRO-BUSINESS:
You talk about knowing history. When the Second Amendment was written, there was no standing army in America, a new country on a continent that had imperial European powers salivating over all that land in the west. All able-bodied men were liable to be called up for the "militia." Look at what President Washington did during the Whiskey Rebellion. Local farmers in Pennsylvania rejected the authority of the national government to impose an excise tax on the sales of whiskey. (No doubt the farmers thought they were resisting a tyrannical government, huh?)
But what did the "father of our country" do? He called up a militia from 3 states and assembled a military force of 15,000 able-bodied men. There was no national army and no national armory, and that is why a "well-regulated militia" of citizen-soldiers had the right to bear arms, not to arm citizens against the national government. Anyway, President Washington felt so strongly about asserting the authority of the government against local rebels that he personally led this force to Pennsylvania to confront the rebels. When they saw the militia Washington had gathered (larger than the force he had to fight the British!), the rebellion faded away. Yet it's astounding, despite this historical example of what a militia was and what it could be called upon to do, that some people today can actually assert that the Second Amendment was written to allow American citizens to resist their own government.
That's not the way I studied history in school.
instead of writing a theasus could you get to the point. i stopped reading after line 2. you might be the only that really cares about imperial european powers and what happened to the whiskey rebellion
It may be off point, but I care that some people actually know our history, and understand that the second amendment was never meant to put assault weapons in the hand of every citizen.
you talk about that you are the only person on this planet that knows history.
can anyone say....... your fired? not anymore, that would be racial.
They (pervert cops) should both be required to register as Sex Offenders in their neiborhoods, After the stop they probably sniffed the gloves and masterbated together watching the grope video. Their properties should be serched for the stolen Lor-tabs and their hard drives need to be pulled and looked at. I use to lie to my young daughters and tell them the Police are our freinds . Here in Tulsa police had to release dozens of convicted felons who were sent up with planted evidece and lying testomony, now there suing Tulsa and officers,detectives and ATF agents are going to prison. Delware county(OK) property taxes have doubled to pay millions to prostitutes who were assaulted in jail and in cars while being taken to court.
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I never told my kids that the cops were their friends. I want them to be aware of reality. I have never met a cop that didn't give me the skeeves. Something about the kind of people who want to carry guns and have power and control over another person that makes me question their judgement and motives.
They can't be that damn smart either Leaving the webcam on!
car video cams are not controlled by the officer..it's automatic.
Maybe they should require all police officers to be neutored and spayed
Who the heck would want to touch her anyway. UGH
Once again, I am embarrased to be a Texan. But what do you expect from a state where the governor for years has hunted on a lease that has written on a rock at the entrance of the lease the word "@!$%#?"
"Police EVERYWHERE on this planet are taught how to "bend not break" the law to investigate any imagined or actual violation of law." If you actually think the previos statement isn't true you are living in a dream world. These troopers used tried an true methods of bullsh*t to cover thier @sses and they will walk away clean. Unless these women verbally refused consent and it was captured on audio the troopers will say it implied consent to search.Looks like a case of citizens not asserting their rights and being intimidated by a shiny badge. Police everywhere "check out possible" during a regular shift. Alot of times these checks turn into actual charges ,even if the intitial probable cause was a smokescreen. As a society we turn a blind eye if it gets actual criminals of our streets. When,as in this case,it appears police overstepped thier authority the public is outraged. You cant have it both ways. It's really quite simple. Know your rights and exercise them at all times.Never consent to searches ,ever. Deny any accusation of wrongdoing,always! Shift the burden of proof to the accuser. Never make statements to police without legal counsel present,EVER. Empower yourself as a citizen. The police serve the people,not the other way around.
There is not much more I can add to the thread, but I hope that these women win their suit. My black people have been victims to the PoPo for a long time and we live under fear for our lives every time we are stopped or approached by these rogue cops. Perhaps this outcry from the public for these two women will also have an effect on our cause against these rogue cops who will also kill in a heartbeat, and have killed many of my people, many of us are suffering from PTSD, and we fear for our sons and daughters safety daily, from rogue cops and rogue citizens.
This is so disturbing, these women were literally molested on the side of the road and now it is on camera and broadcast on the news for the whole world to see. And it happened on the George Bush turnpike, why does that not surprise me? Isn't there a health department or CDC regulation about inserting the same glove into two different vaginas? That cop's action could possibly have spread an STD or AIDS to one of those women. What is wrong with you people down there? Texas, would you hurry up and please secede from my union already? The sane rest of America needs to start using all that Social Security money that we won't have to pay out to your seniors anymore since Social Security is only paid out to US Citizens.
pat88 you had me up to the part where you said, 'S.S. is only paid to US citizens'.
might i suggest you check with the social security administration!! you do not need to be a US citizen to collect your social security.
Texas cops are bigger and dumber...this will score the victims a $ million each at least.
This must truly make Texas feel proud.
surprised they used gloves instead of a gun to search them. Hey, its Texas .. if they had just left them dead by the road the police would never have been charged.
Obviously - those Texan cops have been watching "Reefer Madness" - I hope these victims have a good lawyer who can take these Texas cops to the cleaners. This is absurd in 2012. What a joke!
I guess they were serious with that sign "Litter and it will hurt".
Seriously though, in my uninformed opinion, it sounds like there had to be some kind of gratification going on if for no more reason than she didn't change gloves, had them in the headlights, and in sight of those going by. Maybe she's into exhibitionism.
If they didn't follow policy, which they clearly didn't, if these two hadn't been in uniform there would be no doubt that these two females were sexually assaulted and sodomized - by a female police officer.
couple things here; she was in possession of the vehicle and ownership is a seperate issue when a stop is made
it was a lawful stop as she was seen throwing something out of the car
if the officer truly smelled the odor of weed he had probable cause for further investiga-
tion
absolutely no field cavity search should have done but a pat down is legal
the result will be an award for the cavity search issue only. follow up and you'll see
Stupid is as stupid does and in this case it's the cops. This is typical behavior by rogue cops in a rogue department and in a state where the average IQ is about 77. I do hope the ladies get a ton of money and the cops lose their jobs.
Texas sucks! I wish all the Texas Transplants would move out of my home state of Colorado, and go back to that yahoo state! Leave now!!!