King

Ian M. King, an officer with the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD), made a traffic stop late one night in early May 2007. Nicole D., the young woman driving the car King pulled over, had made an illegal U-tum. After ascertaining that Nicole was lost and uninformed about how police patdown searches should be conducted, King proceeded to conduct a full body search of the woman, including reaching inside her bra to “massage” her breasts, and digitally penetrating her vagina with each of his hands. This “search” was conducted on a public sidewalk, while King held both of Nicole’s laced hands behind her back with one of his own. The entire search was conducted under the ruse that King needed to perform a field sobriety test on 21-year-old Nicole, who told him she had had one beer earlier, and that King also had to search Nicole’s clothes and body for drugs and weapons. Nicole never said “no” to King, and did not try to leave or tell him to stop the search; she was afraid and did not know she could.

Marilyn E., a stranger to both King and Nicole, happened to drive by. She looked down a side street, where she saw a police officer arresting a young woman. The officer…