[WARNING: The following story contains graphic details. Reader discretion advised.]
SAN ANTONIO — A woman is filing a lawsuit after she said a San Antonio police officer pulled out her tampon and did a vaginal search on the side of the road back in 2016.
Natalie D. Simms' lawsuit is against the City of San Antonio and a now-retired female officer named Mara Wilson.
The filing states that officers approached Simms while she sitting on a curb, talking on the phone and waiting for her boyfriend. Police alleged that they had reason to believe she might possess illegal drugs, requesting a search of her vehicle.
The lawsuit claims Simms consented to the search, and that authorities found no illegal items.
After the search of her vehicle, the suit alleges, authorities called Ofc. Wilson to the scene to search Simms.
The lawsuit describes parts of of a conversation exchange between imms and Wilson, which was recorded on Wilson's body camera:
The following is a quotation of a conversation between Simms and Wilson, included in the lawsuit, leading up to the search:
Wilson: Stand up straight. Kind of lean back a little bit. (Inaudible) This is -- these are shorts? Oh, it's a skirt-short?
Simms: Yes.
Wilson: Oh, hell. Okay. Look straight ahead, okay. Spread your legs. I'm gonna ask you, do you have anything down here before I reach down here?
Simms: No. I don't have nothing in my --.
Wilson: Okay.
The lawsuit alleges Wilson said she had plans to "just look," despite Simms’ lack of consent, noting that Simms kept flinching. Simms told Wilson she was doing so because she was “on her cycle.”
Wilson continued her search, first using a flashlight to search her pubic area. It was then, the lawsuit claims, that she reached into Simms’ pants, pulling at the string of an inserted tampon.
Another verbal exchange, as quoted in the lawsuit, goes on to explain what happened next:
Wilson: Uh-huh. Are you wearing a tampon, too?
Simms: Yes.
Wilson: Okay. I just want to make sure that's what it is. Is that a tampon?
Simms: Come on. Yes.
Wilson: Huh? Is that a tampon?
Simms: It's full of blood, right? Why would you do that?
Wilson alleged pulled the feminine hygeine product out and “dangled it for approximately 23 seconds,” making rhetorical questions in plain view of male officers also at the scene.
Simms asked why she had to be searched on the side of a road and not at the station, to which Wilson said "Which (police station)? We got a whole bunch of them," the suit details.
Court documents report that Wilson told a detective she was "searching everything," and had removed Simms' tampon because she "just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything in there."
Authorities found nothing during either search, so Simms was released.
An internal investigation, the lawsuit states, revealed the responding officer that called Wilson to the scene "never indicated to do a cavity search" and that Wilson retired on May 1.
Simms' attorney is asking for a jury trial.