Couple say cops harrassed them

Published September 15, 2009 by the San Antonio Express-News.

By Guillermo Contreras / Express-News

A lesbian couple sued the city of San Antonio and nine police officers Monday for alleged harassment during a fruitless drug raid in April in which the women say officers handcuffed them and made demeaning comments about their sexual orientation.

In a news conference Monday outside federal court, Lindsey Bishop, 25, and her partner, Carolyn Clark, 26, said they were terrorized by officers, did not know the suspect police were looking for and are not involved in drugs. No drugs were found and the women were not charged.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and asks the court to order the police force to change the way it conducts raids.

“I don't know if I'd be comfortable calling the police now,” Clark said. “It's scary.”

Jim Harrington, executive director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which filed the suit, said the case is a classic example of police exceeding their authority and highlights the need for the San Antonio Police Department to be more sensitive to the community it serves.

According to the suit, on April 28, nine SAPD plainclothes officers, guns drawn, busted down the door of the couple's home in Leon Valley, accompanied by three uniformed Leon Valley officers, and said they had a warrant, the suit said. The Leon Valley officers were not sued because they had little involvement in the case.

The SAPD officers demanded to know where “Randy” was and sought evidence of a methamphetamine lab, information they claimed was from an informant who had been in the home, the suit alleges. But when the officers found no such person and a drug-sniffing dog found no narcotics, they interrogated and harassed Bishop and Clark for two hours, the suit said.

The officers criticized the women for their sexual orientation and made derogatory and sexually suggestive comments, the suit said. The officers, all men, humiliated Bishop, who was in bed and partly disrobed, and one threw her pants at her, the suit said.

The suit also said Bishop lost her job as a nanny because of the raid.

Police Chief William McManus stood by previous comments made May 18 to members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gendered community that “the warrant far exceeded the court's standards for probable cause. I'm satisfied the warrant was good.”

At the time, he was also quoted in QSanAntonio.com as saying he does not condone homophobia on the force. And, he asked his audience to “let it all play out before you come to a conclusion.”

“Nothing's changed,” he said Monday, limiting his comments because of the suit.

City Attorney Michael Bernard said he didn't believe the suit had much merit because the warrant was valid, and warrants are generally served “with a show of force.”

“If they're alleging the Police Department acted unprofessionally, it doesn't mean there were constitutional violations,” Bernard said.

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