USA TEXAS: Two women cavity searched by police after being pulled over for littering, “I had a finger in my a** and a finger in my p****”

“I had a finger in my a** and a finger in my p****, and this is so embarrassing to me.”

ADDISON, TX — After being pulled over for littering, two women say police insisted that they must be carrying marijuana in their body cavities.  One after the other, using the same latex glove, the officer performed a search by rubbing all over the womens’ breasts, and then inside their pants where the victims say that their finger penetration into each of their body orifices.

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The incident took place on July 12, 2012.  Angel Dobbs, 38, and her 24-year-old niece, Ashley Dobbs, were heading to Oklahoma for a weekend of entertainment at a casino.  Before they could get there, they were stopped along Highway 161 near Dallas, by Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS) Highway Patrol Trooper David Farrell.

“My name is Trooper Farrell. I work for the highway patrol. Reason for the contact is I watched both of you throw cigarettes out,” the trooper said according to dash cam video.

“How much marijuana is in that car? And don’t lie to me,” Farrell demanded.

When the motorists’ negative answers were not to Farrell’s satisfaction, he decided that he wanted to take a “deeper” look.  He summoned a female trooper to perform invasive inside-the-pants roadside searches in an attempt to arrest the women.

Trooper Farrell’s seemingly inexplicable escalation of the situation can be explained by reviewing both the trooper’s history and the pressures he works under as a highway patrolman.  Troopers are under major pressure to seize money and property from people suspected of carrying drugs — regardless of any charges or convictions.  To meet the demand, “public safety” employees spend a great deal of time harassing people and searching for plants and substances that are being possessed without government permission.  Farrell himself had a history of escalating situations in hopes of finding marijuana, as he did in this 2009 incident captured on video.

A second DPS highway patrol trooper, Kelley Helleson, arrived to assist with the effort to imprison Angel and Ashley Dobbs and confiscate their stuff.  When it comes to groping suspects in intimate areas, it is supposedly less offensive to have officers of the same sex performing the the searches, which is why the female trooper was called out.

Trooper Helleson then performed a more thorough search of each woman.  Helleson strapped on a latex glove.  First, the molested Angel Dobbs, rubbed her hands around her breasts.  The trooper then rounded the bases and dipped her hand down into Ms. Dobbs’ pants — deep into her crotch from both the front and backside.

Then, without changing her glove, Ashley received the identical treatment.  Her crotch was invaded as well in the name of keeping the streets safe from illegal plants.

Nothing was recovered from either woman, although they both claim to have lost their dignity.

“This has been an eye-opening experience for me, okay?” said Angel during the 51-minute stop.  “Never been pulled over, never searched like this.  It’s… I mean, I was like totally violated over there a few minutes ago. I had a finger in my a** and a finger in my p****, and this is so embarrassing to me.”

The troopers then tried to “morph this situation into a DWI investigation,” and required Angel Dobbs to perform field sobriety tests in a last-ditch effort to imprison her for something.  Ms. Dobbs passed the test.  Both women were let go with a warning for littering.

Both women came forward with official complaints against the department and a lawsuit.  They alleged sexual assault by Trooper Helleson and theft of medication by Trooper Farrell.

Reviewing the incident with CBS, Angel Dobbs explains what she went through:  “At this point, I’m in clear shock. I can’t even believe this is happening.  Turns me around goes down into the front of my pants into my inner thigh and at which point she goes up with two fingers.  I just look at her and say ‘oh my God, I’ve just been violated.’”

Ashley’s experience was equally disturbing.  “She went down, then turned me around, and went down my front and then she actually dug,” Ashley recalled.  “I didn’t know what I could say, what I could do. I felt hopeless.”

The incident, captured on dash-cam video, stunned many who saw it.  How could the police casually think it was OK to stick their hands into citizens” crotches on the side of the road?   The answer is that the Drug War has corrupted many police officers so badly that their jobs have been inexorably separated the traditional role of “serving and protecting” the public.  Tasked with enforcing prohibition laws on a daily basis, modern law enforcers often lose all sense of what is just and moral in terms of their official duties.

Attorney Pete Shulte commented that the demeanor of the officers makes the roadside search look like a routine occurrence.

“I was molested. I was violated. I was humiliated in front of other traffic. I had to witness my niece go through the same thing,” Angel Dobbs said following the incident.

See KDFW‘s coverage of the incident below:

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FOLLOW-UP:

Trooper David Farrell was criminally charged with theft when the Dobbs ladies claimed that he stole a bottle of medication from one of their purses.  However, since that was not captured on video, a jury found him not guilty due to lack of evidence.  The Department of Public Safety cleared him of all wrongdoing and — after more than a year of paid suspension — returned him to active duty.

Trooper Kelley Helleson was terminated from Texas DPS after nearly 7 months of paid time off.    When the video was presented to a grand jury, they indicted her on two charges of sexual assault and two charges of official oppression.  In a deal with prosecutors, Helleson plead guilty to the oppression charges so that the sexual assault charges would be dropped.

“I didn’t agree with dropping the sexual assault because I know there was sexual assault,” Dobbs said.

Even after officially oppressing 2 innocent citizens, Helleson faced no jail time.   State District Judge Dominique Collins sentenced Helleson to probation for two years, and a $2,000 fine.  A grand for each victim.

The $2,000 fine didn’t quite cover the damages incurred as a result of the probing.  The Texas DPS settled with Angel and Ashley Dobbs to the tune of $185,000.