Oak Lawn traffic stop invasive, lawsuit claims
Body searches lead man to question intentions of cops
Oak Lawn police subjected an Oak Park man to unreasonable and increasingly invasive bodily searches after stopping him without cause as he drove through the village last year, a federal lawsuit alleges.
Tylus Allen Jr., 29, claims in a federal civil rights suit filed Dec. 2 that a routine traffic stop in Oak Lawn devolved into a humiliating and emotionally scarring experience after police strip-searched him and forced him to undergo a digital rectal exam and abdominal X-ray at the hospital despite lacking reasonable suspicion he was concealing contraband.
Allen’s three-count suit alleges unreasonable search and accuses the officers of battery for ordering him to undress and “touching his buttocks” without consent.
Four Oak Lawn police officers, one Burbank officer, and the village of Oak Lawn are named as defendants.
An Oak Lawn spokesman declined comment. Burbank police did not respond to a request for comment.
Allen’s suit claims he was lawfully driving in Oak Lawn on Dec. 2, 2018, when two village police officers pulled him over and demanded he exit his vehicle. After Allen complied, the officers searched him and his vehicle without legal cause or reasonable suspicion to do so, the suit claims.
Finding nothing, the officers requested that a K9 officer from Burbank come and conduct a search of the interior and exterior of Allen’s vehicle, according to the suit. Again, the search turned up no contraband or evidence of criminal activity, the suit claims.
At that point, the officers charged Allen with reckless driving and brought him back to the police station where he was ordered to change into clothes they provided and undergo a strip search that included “a thorough search,” his suit alleges.
When the search found no contraband, police called an ambulance and had Allen taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center for a cavity search, according to the suit.
At Advocate, Allen alleges the officers falsely told an emergency room doctor they had found drugs in his vehicle during a traffic stop and asked the doctor to perform a digital rectal exam and X-ray of his abdomen. The doctor found no evidence of contraband or criminal activity, the suit claims.
It alleges police had no legal cause or reasonable suspicion to conduct any of the searches of Allen or his vehicle, and that he did not consent to any of them.
Allen, who claims he suffered great mental and emotional pain as a result of the episode, seeks an unspecified amount of damages.
Court records show police charged Allen with misdemeanor reckless driving and multiple traffic offenses in connection with the incident.
A criminal complaint alleges Allen drove across three lanes of traffic on Cicero in a single motion amid wet road conditions, cutting off multiple vehicles and causing them to brake abruptly to avoid a collision. He received traffic citations for improper lane use, failure to wear a seat belt and driving with an open container of alcohol, records show.
Allen pleaded guilty to the reckless driving charge in May and received four months supervision and a fine, according to court records. The traffic citations were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.