'I ACTUALLY STARTED CRYING'

Strip Search Extreme, Rave Workers Tell Civilian Police Board Tribunal

Being subjected to a police pat-down before a Halifax rave last year
wouldn't have bothered Aleashia Stanley or Aimee Kindervater.

What alarmed them - and is now the focus of a Nova Scotia Police Review
Board hearing - is the fact Stanley, 19, and Kindervater, 24, were
strip-searched.

The pair told a civilian tribunal yesterday they were both working at a
Maynard Street warehouse called The Underground on Jan. 29, 2000 when
police stormed the building.

Kindervater was at the coat check, and Stanley was about to start a shift
on door security.

The Halifax Regional Police drug squad had received a tip that several jars
of the drug GHB - commonly known as the date-rape drug - had been placed in
the dance hall ceiling tiles by building owner Wayne Mitchell.

When officers arrived, they corralled about 50 staff members into a big
room. They then escorted employees into washrooms to be strip-searched.

Stanley, who was 17 at the time, found the exercise so intrusive she broke
down in tears after being searched.

"I was really ticked off, and really upset," she testified yesterday. "I
actually started crying. And I'm not a big crier."

When Const. Stephanie Johnson-Meisner escorted the teen into the washroom,
Stanley was wearing a jacket, backless shirt and no bra. Because of the
cold weather, she wore two pairs of tight pants. Underneath, she wore thong
underwear.

After being asked to remove her jacket, pants and shoes, Stanley was told
to remove her panties. "I thought that was weird, because I don't know what
you could hide in there,"

Kindervater testified Meisner made her "pull down my underwear, turn
around, and bend over."

Based on what they were wearing, both girls felt Johnson-Meisner's actions
were extreme. "A pat-down would have found anything," Kindervater said.

But under cross-examination, Kindervater told Pat Duncan - who represents
Meisner and two other officers named in the complaint - it would be fairly
easy to smuggle small pills into a rave by hiding them in a bra.

And Stanley admitted rave promoters and building owners are almost never
searched by in-house security, leaving open the possibility they could
smuggle narcotics into the all-night dance parties.

No charges came from the search, and only a small quantity of marijuana and
an assortment of unidentified pills were found.

The hearing continues today.