A Lakeland Police officer thought a woman he pulled over had drugs on her, so he asked her to hand them over by allegedly asking the woman to lift her shirt, pull her bra, and shake her chest.
No drugs fell out.
Unsatisfied with this turn of events and apparently unconvinced that gravity is a thing, the officer asked the woman to lift her bra and shake it again.
Sounds completely legit.
In a letter to the Lakeland Police Department, the Polk County state attorney, Jerry Hill, called the actions of officer Dustin Fetz's traffic stop search "highly questionable" and "ineffective and possibly dangerous."
According to the Ledger of Lakeland, Hill says Fetz had no real reasons to suspect the woman was carrying any drugs.
No drugs were found on the woman, on her boyfriend, or in the vehicle.
A retired Lakeland lawyer who knows the woman personally wrote a letter to the Ledger, telling the paper's editor about the incident and wanting to bring the issue to the public's awareness.
Police Chief Lisa Womack then opened an internal investigation, and Fetz was placed on paid leave for four days.
According to the State Attorney's Office, the woman was driving with a broken headlight and did not have a valid driver's license.
The car she and her boyfriend were driving was borrowed. After Fetz had pulled them over, he asked for consent to search the vehicle. When consent wasn't given, the officer walked the woman to the back of the car and asked her to lift her shirt and shake her bra to prove she had no drugs on her person.
According to a report, Fetz told an investigator that the bra-shaking search "is a known technique," but the officer admitted never being formally trained to perform such a search.
The Lakeland Police Department is still investigating the incident.
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