- Dana Holmes is suing LaSalle County police and the four officers involved for what she says was an unnecessary and illegal search after DUI arrest
- Holmes' lawyer says more women have been illegally strip searched
- Lawyer has filed a motion to store all video recordings from inside the jail
Stripped: Footage shows Holmes being taken to the ground and pulled into a cell, then stripped by three male officers and a female officer
After she is naked in the cell for what she says is several minutes, a male officer throws Holmes
a 'padded suit'
A week after a Chicago-area woman claimed that she was forcibly stripped by LaSalle County deputies, more women have allegedly come forward with similar complaints.
Dana Holmes, 33, was arrested in May for drunk driving and is now suing county police for what she says was an illegal, humiliating strip search by four officers that was all caught on video.
Holmes' lawyer Terry Ekl said: 'We have reason to believe there are other women who have been illegally strip-searched by the sheriff's office', the Chicago Tribune reported.
Ekl's motion said: 'It is believed that the video recordings will be destroyed, either routinely or otherwise, if they are not ordered preserved.'
A LaSalle County spokesperson would not comment on the case.
Dana Holmes was nearly three times over the legal blood alcohol limit when she was pulled over and taken to county jail on May 18, where surveillance footage shows her being pulled to the ground by a female officer and three male officers.
The 33-year-old was stripped completely of her clothes and left naked in a cell alone, where she cried on the floor for several minutes before police tossed her a ‘padded suit.’
Holmes was transported to the county jail by local authorities who made no note of any combativeness. Footage of her DUI arrest released to the media shows her cooperating and the local authorities made no note of her resisting behavior.
However, Lasalle County police say local cops informed them she was ‘being mouthy and causing problems’ according to the Chicago Tribune.
It is at the county jail where things take a turn. Holmes is shown being searched against a wall by a female officer as male officers watch.
At one point, one of her legs moves. Lasalle police say the footage, which has no audio, shows Holmes kicking them.
Holmes is then taken to the ground by officers and footage shows her being stripped of her clothes by four officers and tossed into a cell.
‘I did not kick,’ Holmes said. ‘I don't know if I lost my balance or what happened, but I wasn't being combative at all.’
While it’s unclear what led police to strip Holmes, laws regarding strip searches are clear.
‘Nothing in the statute says resisting arrest is justification for a strip-search,’ attorney Len Cavise of DePaul University College of Law told the Tribune.
The lawyer representing the Coal City woman agrees.
‘It's not only a violation of her civil rights. It's also a crime,’ said Terry Ekl.
Under Illinois law, a suspect may only be stripped by an officer of their same sex and never in the presence of anyone not participating in the search.
Holmes was put in a cell while still nude, where she says she cried on the floor for two or more minutes before a male officer tossed her something to cover up with. According to the police report, Holmes was told she would stay there ‘until she sobers up and was willing to cooperate and not fight with deputies," according to the report.’
‘I was terrified. I felt helpless. I was scared and I lay there crying,’Holmes told WLS. ‘I just prayed.’
Holmes is suing the LaSalle County sheriff's department and the four deputies for violating her civil rights after her May 18 arrest and for inflicting emotional harm by stripping her without legal justification and says she hopes the officers involved lose their jobs.
‘There's a lot of people that get DUIs, a lot of people that just make mistakes in life,’ Holmes said. ‘That still doesn't give them a reason to do what they did. My dignity is worth more than that, and other people's too.'
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