COMPLAINTS FILED AGAINST KINSTON POLICE

Two families have filed formal complaints against the Kinston Police
Department alleging their daughters were harassed, intimidated and
humiliated by officers on Sunday.

The families say the officers, who were responding to a complaint that
young people might have been using drugs at Harvey Park, forced the
girls to partially disrobe so they could be searched for drugs.

The parents also say officers used vulgar language with the girls,
threatened them with a body cavity search and then hauled them to the
police station without properly notifying their parents.

"I want the cops to explain why they put kids through that," said John
Galog of Dover, whose 14-year-old stepdaughter is one of the two girls
involved. "My daughter's not going to be harassed and humiliated like
that."

The other complainant is Juli Murphy of Kinston, whose 13-year-old
daughter is the other girl involved.

The police department is looking into the families' complaints and
Police Chief Scottie Hill is promising action if any violations of
department policy are found.

Lt. Frankie Howard of the department's professional standards unit is
handling the matter.

"It's active and it's under investigation," he said. "It'll be
investigated fully."

Accounts of the Sunday afternoon event at the park vary. Because the
matter is under an internal investigation, officers - including the
ones involved - are not allowed to comment.

Using information from a Kinston Police Department report as well as
descriptions from the parents involved, it appeared the incident
happened like this:

Officers received an anonymous telephone call about possible drug use
at the park around 4 p.m.

An undisclosed number of officers responded. Galog says seven officers
and a drug dog showed up at the park.

The police incident report states the officers told the seven people
sitting on a park bench why they were there and at least two officers
began "to check all the subjects."

Officers found "a green, leafy substance" they suspected was marijuana
on a 14-year-old boy. He had been carrying it in the front left pocket
of his pants, the report states.

Murphy said officers "patted down" the children to look for drugs and
she said a female officer patted down the girls.

The female officer then told the girls to go behind a bush so they
could be searched further, Murphy said. There, the girls were
instructed to lift their shirts and pull up their bras to show the
female officer they were not hiding any drugs, she alleged.

"They started crying," Murphy said. She said officers later asked the
girls if they were hiding anything in their "crotch areas," and told
them they'd better not be hiding anything because they would face a
search.

Both Galog and Murphy deny the girls were hanging out with the boy who
was cited for marijuana possession and they say their daughters never
possessed any drugs.

"He came walking up, and about the time he came walking up, that's
when the cops rolled up," Galog said, adding that neither girl uses
drugs.

The girls, who are friends, were just hanging out with their buddies
at the park, Murphy said.

Later, the boy and the two girls were taken to the police station, the
report states.

The reason? Murphy said she was told the officers suspected one boy
had passed drugs to one of the girls.

"That's what they told me at the police station," she said. "It hadn't
happened and they let all the other kids go and they really didn't
have a reason to take the children down there."

Gulag and Murphy are angry they weren't notified their children were
in custody.

"There were no phone calls made to us from Kinston Police Department,"
said Murphy, who added it was her daughter's boyfriend who told her
and her husband that their daughter had been taken into custody.

Murphy further alleges that officers were rude to her when she arrived
at the police station to see what was happening.

The police report states officers eventually released the boy to his
father and the girls to Murphy, and it states that police barred the
three from returning to the park.

Searching children for drugs without parental consent in an
on-the-street situation might be within the law, said Bob Farb,
assistant director of the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill.

While not directly addressing the Kinston situation, Farb said, "A
search generally is not going to require a court order or parental
notification when it's out on the streets."

He said putting children in a police lineup or fingerprinting them
would be situations that would require parental involvement.

Galog and Murphy say they're not standing still and are considering
legal action against the department.

"I want somebody to pay for what they've done to my child," Galog
said, adding that his stepdaughter now has trouble sleeping because of
the encounter.

He said any lawsuit, if filed, would be about more than
money.

"It's beyond that," he said. "It's a matter of principle. They pushed
their authority too far. They should have a lot better things to do
than picking on 12- and 13-year-old kids."

Murphy remains most angry that her daughter was taken into custody
without parental notification, and she hopes the formal complaints
filed against the police department will be helpful.

"I hope that it puts some of the Kinston police officers in check,"
Murphy said. "They act like they are above everybody else, and to
intimidate a couple of little girls is wrong."

Howard said the investigation of the families' complaints could take
up to 30 days. The probe's findings will be forwarded to Hill, but any
outcome of the investigation may not be immediately clear because of
state personnel laws.

"As far as any disciplinary action, I won't be able to share that with
you, if there is any in this case," Howard told The Free Press.