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Strip-Searched Boy Wins $150,000 Judgment 

By Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 18, 2003; Page B01 

A student who said he was stripped and searched and locked in a 
cell in the D.C. jail was awarded $150,000 yesterday in what 
apparently was the first trial to be held in connection with 
alleged abuses during tours of the facility.

The 15-year-old boy complained that on a visit to the jail 
April 9, 2001, with other students from Evans Middle School, 
he was forced to disrobe and undergo an examination of his 
genitals and body cavities, according to his attorney, Bruce 
Richardson.

Richardson said the student was placed in a holding cell 
in a jail uniform for about 30 minutes.

According to Richardson, the student sued the District of 
Columbia, the school system and the Corrections Department, 
alleging that he had suffered battery and false imprisonment. 
Richardson said the complaint also accused the city of general
negligence.

He said the suit filed in U.S. District Court asked for damages 
for pain and suffering and mental anguish that allegedly arose 
from what the student claimed was done to him.

"We argued post-traumatic stress," Richardson said.

The month after the student went to the jail with Evans 
classmates, it was reported that nine of 12 boys from the 
school who toured the jail said they were stripped
and searched.

The 12 students had been suspended from school, and an employee 
of the school arranged the tour to show them what would happen 
if they were arrested.

The jail had offered tours for more than a decade as a crime 
deterrent and as a civics lesson. Officials said that the 
incidents that spurred the complaints in May 2001
were isolated, improper and violated policy. The matter created 
a crisis for the school system and the Department of Corrections.

A school system spokeswoman said last night that the program 
of jail tours has not resumed.

A spokesman for the city's Office of the Corporation Counsel, 
which defends the District in lawsuits{cedil} said some 
complaints made in connection with the searches have been 
settled out of court. 

He said yesterday's case was the first to go to trial and the 
first in which a verdict was reached. The spokesman, Peter 
Lavallee, said the city is studying the possibilities of 
appealing.

Richardson, who tried the case with Sidney and Edward Friedman 
and Rosemary Allulis of the firm of Weinstock, Friedman & 
Friedman, said the complaint was difficult to prove because little
corroboration existed of the youth's account.

He said, however, that he believed that the youth's case 
was bolstered when a corrections officer was summoned as a 
witness and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and did not 
testify.

Richardson said the corrections officer was identified from 
a signature on the shoes given to the youth to wear while 
being held. According to Richardson, the jailhouse shoes, which 
the youth was allowed to keep as a souvenir, bore the message 
"Don't come back," along with the signature.

"We are happy that our client was vindicated in court," 
Richardson said.

Richardson said the youth was 13 when the jail visit occurred 
and in the seventh grade at Evans. He now is in the eighth 
grade, according to Richardson, who said the student was held 
back a year because of emotional and academic difficulties 
stemming from the incident.

He said, the youth "seemed happy and at peace with himself 
after the verdict was rendered."
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9082-2003Jan17.html