Hub police settle suit, to get strip-search policy

By The Associated Press

BOSTON -- A medical assistant who was strip-searched by officers after being pulled over for a traffic violation has settled her case against the city's Police Department.

Sharon Teicher, who said the search violated her civil rights, will receive $48,000 from the department, which also agreed to adopt a policy on procedures for such searches.

The settlement does not require police to write a strip-search policy, but Mary Jo Harris, the department's legal adviser, said one will be written for the police rule book this year.

"This is something the department was looking at for some time," she said, adding that the new policy will hold that police can perform strip searches only when they suspect the person has a concealed weapon or something that could cause harm.

Officers will not be allowed to search body cavities. Such searches can be made only by medical personnel with a warrant.

Teicher, who now lives out of state, said she was strip-searched in May 1997 after being stopped for going through a red light.

At the time, she was a medical assistant in the cardiac care unit of the Veteran's Hospital in Boston's Jamaica Plain section.

Teicher's lawyer, Howard Friedman, said the officer checked her registration plates and found that her license had been suspended for allegedly not paying a fine in North Carolina. Friedman said the fine had been paid.

Teicher, who was arrested, said that about 15 minutes before she was to be released on bail, Officer Paulette Parks entered the station's holding cell and asked her to open her blouse and bra and to pull down her pants, leaving her underpants on.

"She felt violated," Friedman said. "She was in shock. She did what the officer told her to do. ... The officer was looking at her bare breasts for God knows what reason."

Friedman said he understands why police frisk people they arrest, but he believes strip searches should be made only when there is reason to believe the person is carrying a weapon or drugs.