By Kristine Gill
Naples Daily News
NAPLES, Fla. — Footage from four different Fort Myers police body cameras and a dashboard camera show officers acted appropriately when arresting a man who claims they performed an illegal body cavity search, acting police Chief Dennis Eads said Thursday.
The Fort Myers Police Department released the footage Thursday following criticism from witnesses who filmed the arrest and say officers violated state statute in performing a public strip-search. Much of the video evidence seems to refute those claims. There’s nothing obvious in the video to help prove the claim that officers conducted an improper search.
The footage shows the Dec. 16 arrest of Michael Theodore McDonald, a 30-year-old Fort Myers man facing charges of drug possession and resisting officers with violence.
In the video, officers with the Fort Myers Police Department, along with a deputy from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office are seen conducting a traffic stop on McDonald, who is accused of running a stop sign.
Reports show McDonald stops his vehicle but lifts himself out of the seat, as if he were grabbing and concealing items before officers approached his silver Chevrolet.
Once out of the vehicle, McDonald admits to officers he has been smoking marijuana that day, which is why his vehicle smells of the drug.
While handcuffed against the hood of a patrol cruiser, McDonald also admits to officers that he has weed on him, in his back pocket.
Officers who pat him down feel a bulge in his shorts, which felt like a baggie. About three-and-a-half minutes into the video, McDonald begins to resist officers, who shout at him to stop struggling. McDonald then says the drugs are in the trunk of his car.
Officers raise his hands behind his back and over his head, and McDonald starts wailing as an officer reaches into the leg of his shorts.
“You’re clenching up,” an officer says.
“I can’t feel my hands, sir,” McDonald shouts.
McDonald continues to scream while officers search him. Throughout the 20-minute clip McDonald remains fully clothed. An officer who reached into his shorts wore black gloves during the search.
About eight minutes in, McDonald offers to retrieve a bag of marijuana from his shorts for officers. He pulls the baggie out and officers pat him down again, this time they feel another bag still in side McDonald’s shorts.
“What’s this?” an officer says.
“That’s my pants bro,” McDonald says.
“That’s your pants? That’s a baggie right there.”
At one point an officer tells his colleagues to position McDonald in front of a camera so the search is fully recorded.
“I want him in front of the camera while this is done,” an officer says.
McDonald says he is being harassed and that he doesn’t have anything else in his pants.
“He has a pocket in the pants,” an officer says.
The video shows, as indicated in his arrest report, that McDonald had a separate pocket in his shorts which contained the baggie of cocaine and heroin.
McDonald is charged with possession of cocaine with intent to sell, possession of heroin with intent to sell and possession of not more than 20 grams of marijuana. He also faces a charge of resisting an officer with violence.
As of Thursday, no complaints had been filed with the department regarding the search and arrest.
Copyright 2015 the Naples Daily News