CUSTOMS SERVICE DRUG SEARCHES PROMPT OUTRAGE, LAWSUITS

Complaints: Innocent Travelers Say They Were Unfairly Stripped, Prodded And
Humiliated, But Officials Cite 'Reasonable Suspicion.'

Washington- Returning to Chicago from Jamaica, Gwendolyn Richards was
plucked from a line of air travelers by a Customs Service inspector and
ordered into a bare, windowless room. During the next five hours, she was
strip-searched, handcuffed, X-rayed and probed internally by a doctor.

The armed customs officer who led Richards in handcuffs through O'Hare
International Airport and drove her to a hospital for examination suspected
she might be smuggling drugs. They found nothing.

"I was humiliated - I couldn't believe it was happenings," said Richards,
who is black and has joined a civil-rights lawsuit against the Customs
Service. "They had no reason to think I had drugs."

Richards, 27, isn't alone.

Last year, officers ordered partial or full strip searches or X-rays for
2,447 airline passengers, and found drugs on 27 percent of them, according
to figures compiled by the Customs Service.

Customs officials say tough tactics are necessary to catch the growing
number of smugglers who swallow cocaine-filled balloons, insert packages of
heroin into their body cavities, or even hide drugs in a hollow leg or
under the cover of a fake pregnancy.

"We still have a major drug problem in this country," customs Commissioner
Raymond Kelly said in an interview Wednesday. "We have to do this."

Richards and others who have sued the Customs Service have alleged that
they were targeted because of their race. Sixty percent of those pulled
aside last year for body searches or X-rays were black or Hispanic, customs
figures show. Thiry-three percent of Hispanic who were searched were found
to have drugs, compared with 31 percent of blacks and 26 percent of whites.

Kelly said race isn't a factor. "There are higher-risk countries and
higher-risk flights," he said. "Those flights may be more populated by a
particular ethnic group."

Last year, the Customs Service seized 858 pounds of cocaine and 803 pounds
of heroin attached to or inside international air travelers' bodies,
officials said. More than 70 percent of the heroin seized at airports was
smuggled that way.

Acknowledging that searches "can get pretty traumatic," Kelly said customs
is experimenting with new technology that might reduce the number of body
searches. The review comes after several lawsuits and complaints from
travelers who say they suffered abusive treatment and hours of confinement.
For instance:

A Florida mother says her baby was born prematurely because customs
officials forced her to take a prescription laxative when she was seven
months pregnant. In a lawsuit filed last month, Janneral Denson, 25, said
she was taken from the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and
shackled to a hospital bed for two days so inspectors could watch her bowel
movements. She says her son, born 12 days later, suffered damage.

Two Jamaican-born U.S. citizens each filed a $500,000 claim in September
over body-cavity searches and X-rays in Tampa, Fla. One of the women
learned afterward that she was pregnant, and agonized that her fetus might
have been harmed, according to their attorney, Warren Hope Dawson. The baby
was born healthy. Customs policy requires a pregnancy test before a woman
is X-rayed, but Dauwson said the pregnant woman was not tested.

A 51-year-old widow returning from an around-the-world trip was held for 22
hours at a San Francisco hospital and given a powerful laxative while
inspectors watched her bowel movements. Amanda Buritica of Port Chester,
N.Y., won a $451,001 lawsuit last February against the Customs Service.

A Boston nurse, Bosede Adedeji, won $215,000 in a similar lawsuit in 1991
after she was stopped at Logan International Airport as she returned from
visiting her sick son in Nigeria. A judge ruled that the officers lacked
sufficient suspicion to subject her to an X-ray and pelvic exam.

Customs officials note that less than 2 percent of the 68 million fliers
who pass through customs each year have their luggage opened. Far fewer -
49,000 people - are personally searched, usually with a pat down. Strip
searches are performed by officers of the same gender.

The customs review found 19 passengers who were subjected to pelvic or
rectal exams by doctors while inspectors watched. Drugs were found in
almost two-thirds of those cases.

Congress and courts have given the Customs Service broad authority to
search for illegal imports.

The Supreme Court ruled that customs officers at airports and border
crossings don't need the probable cause or warrants that police need to
search possessions. Customs officers can perform a strip search based on
"reasonable suspicion" that someone might be hiding something illegal.

A customs handbook obtained by The Associated Press advises officers that
reasonable suspicion usually requires a combination of factors, including
someone who: appears nervous, wears baggy clothing, gives vague or
contradictory answers about travel plans, acts unusually polite or
argumentative, wears sunglasses or acts sick. Race isn't cited.

Customs officers can detain people for hours, even days, without allowing
them a telephone call to a lawyer or relative or charging them with a
crime. Inspectors say they keep detainees from making calls so drug
associates aren't tipped off. Generally, if someone is detained for eight
hours or more, a federal prosecutor is notified.

Richards is among more than 80 black females who filed a class-action
lawsuit claiming they were singled out for strip searches at O'Hare because
of race and gender.

The agency has hired an outside contractor to review how inspectors deal
with the public, and is exploring ways to make the system less hostile.

Checked-by: Richard Lake