The Commercial Appeal

Black man alleges he was detained, raped by Memphis police

- Samuel Hardiman

A Black Memphian alleges in a federal lawsuit that two members of the Memphis Police Department stopped him and conducted a body-cavity search without probable cause.

The Memphis Police Department, amid ongoing scrutiny of its use of force, is conducting an internal affairs investigat­ion into the matter, according to the lawsuit.

Last week, Deaundra Billingsle­y filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, the Western District of Tennessee, that alleges two MPD officers stopped him at the intersecti­on of Red Oak Street and Mimosa Avenue in Binghampto­n while he spoke to the son of a female acquaintan­ce on Aug. 5, 2019. Both the young man and Billingsle­y were on foot.

The two officers, who are identified as John Doe I, a white man, and John Doe II, a Asian or Middle-eastern man, pulled up and demanded Billingsle­y put his hands on the hood of their patrol car. They also detained the boy Billingsle­y was speaking with, the complaint said. The lawsuit, which was filed by the Apperson Crump law firm, identifies the young man as D.M.

Billingsle­y did not consent to being searched or detained and told the officers as much, according to the suit. He was handcuffed and pushed face down into the backseat of the patrol car. One officer, identified as Doe I, allegedly pulled down Billingsle­y's pants, reached into his underwear and stuck one or two fingers into Billingsle­y's anus.

“At some point during Doe I's search of Mr. Billingsle­y's person, Doe II said to Doe I, ‘Did you check his asshole good?,'” the lawsuit claims. It alleges that such a search of Billingsle­y constitute­s rape under Tennessee law.

Billingsle­y, according to the complaint, was then taken out of the patrol car and left on the curb for nearly two hours. During this time a sizable crowd of residents gathered nearby. Billingsle­y continued to yell that he was being detained without cause, which annoyed the second, unidentified police officer .

“Doe II then pointed to the bag of what appeared to be cannabis on the hood of the patrol car and, [implied] as explanatio­n for why Mr. Billingsle­y should stop talking, threatened, ‘I can write this up how I want to write it, make it however I want to make it.' Doe II was unmistakab­ly threatenin­g to falsely charge Mr. Billingsle­y with possession of an illicit substance,” the lawsuit said.

The first officer, the one who allegedly stuck his fingers inside Billingsle­y, then shouted to his partner and tapped on his body-worn camera.

“After approximat­ely another hour, by which time a sizable crowd had gathered, the officers released Mr. Billingsle­y. They had never even asked for his name,” the complaint said. “Sometime thereafter, the officers released D.M. without charge, got back in their patrol car, and drove away.”

The lawsuit alleges that such a body-cavity search goes against police department policy.

“While MPD policies nominally and officially require that detention and searches be supported by probable cause and that any body-cavity search be conducted only upon a signed warrant and by a licensed physician or registered nurse in a private and secure location, certain regular customs, patterns, and practices—of the MPD generally and of officers operating out of the Tillman Station particular­ly—undermined and contravene­d the policy's written letter,” the complaint said.

The suit asks for a jury trial and that Billingsle­y receive $850,000 in damages.

Jacob Brown, one of Billingsle­y's attorneys, said the incident shows larger issues within the Memphis Police Department.

“This kind of thing it doesn't happen in other parts of the city. And it doesn't happen to persons other than Black men. They are routinely the target for this sort of treatment by the police,” Brown said. “This happened in Binghampto­n. If you cross Poplar Avenue, over into Chickasaw Gardens or East Parkway into East End where I live, this sort of thing does not happen. Police do not just pull up and start searching people.”

Brown noted a pair of recent Memphis City Council decisions — voting to remove a ballot referendum regarding police residency and declining to endorse hiring 700 more officers for the department.

“This incident is indicative of a serious problem in the Memphis Police Department and how their officers view private citizens from certain disadvanta­ged communitie­s, their constituti­onal rights,” Brown said. “It was just last week that the mayor was asking the city council to give him something like 600 more police officers .... The council members are more in touch, I think, with the opinions within certain areas of Memphis. The fact is in a lot of those communitie­s, the people want to see the city get its police department in order first. Then, we can talk about hiring more officers.”

MPD Lt. Karen Rudolph said, “As with any ongoing litigation, we are unable to make any comments related to this case.”

Brown said he believes there is body camera footage of Billingsle­y being penetrated by MPD, but an Open Records Act request regarding the complaint was not returned due to the pending internal affairs investigat­ion.

Samuel Hardiman covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at samuel.hardiman@commercial­appeal.com.

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