Woman's Lawsuit Over Aggressive Jailhouse Strip Search Leads to More Women Coming Forward With Complaints
Five other women step forward according to attorney
Dana Holmes was booked for DUI at the LaSalle County jail in Illinois last May, and claims in a federal lawsuit that she was illegally strip searched by three men and a woman. Video of the incident shows Holmes being tackled to the floor and carried into a padded jail cell where she is aggressively stripped and left naked. Holmes says at the time she was afraid the officers might come back in and rape her. One of the deputies throws a blanket in the cell a few minutes later. The cops claim Holmes was combative.
Holmes' lawyer, Terry Ekl, now says five other women have come forward with complaints about illegal searches at the LaSalle County jail. Ekl says every part of Holmes' strip search was illegal—he says state law permits strip searches only of persons suspected of having weapons or drugs and that they can only be done by officers of the same sex.
Watch video of the arrest and jailhouse search below. The search begins around the 3:00 mark.
