Twenty women detained in San Francisco’s county jail are filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city, the sheriff’s office and Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, alleging they were subjected to a degrading mass strip search that was recorded by deputies.
The lawsuit, which attorneys said would be filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday, alleges that roughly a dozen deputies entered the women’s housing unit at the 425 Seventh St. lockup and ordered every woman into the common area. The lawsuit was to be filed on the one-year anniversary of the alleged incident.
Women were then directed one by one into a search area where they were ordered to remove all clothing, lift their breasts, spread their buttocks, squat and cough, according to the complaint. Male deputies were arrayed on a staircase and an upper tier maintained a clear view of the women as they undressed, the suit alleges…