What began as a late-night traffic stop in Detroit has now turned into a deeply troubling internal investigation, after a woman told WXYZ-TV Detroit reporter Randy Wimbley that a police officer took intimate videos and a nude photo from her phone while she was in custody and sent them to himself.
According to Wimbley’s report, Detroit police have confirmed that the officer was arrested earlier this week, suspended from duty, and is now the subject of an Internal Affairs investigation. The woman at the center of the case, Samantha Thomason, says the alleged misconduct was not just invasive, but terrifying, because it came from someone wearing a badge and exercising control over her while she could do nothing to stop it.
That is what makes the accusation land so hard. A person under arrest has already lost freedom of movement, access to their own property, and much of their immediate ability to protect themselves. If the allegation is true, then this was not just unprofessional conduct. It was the use of state power in one of the most personal and degrading ways imaginable…