Three separate complaints were recently filed with the Public Complaints Officer of the Yehuda and Shomron District Police against one policeman for serious violations. The complaints are for violent detentions, illegal detentions, illegal body searches, including on minors and in their underwear, and illegal searches in a vehicle.

In the first incident, which occurred on a motzei Shabbos, a man and his pregnant wife were driving from Jerusalem towards the Shomron. At the Kikar Adam Intersection the above-mentioned policeman shined a light into their car and demanded the driver’s ID card. The policeman also began to body search a passenger who was sitting in the rear seat of the car. The driver documented the search with the video camera of his cell phone.

In the video clip the policeman is seen demanding that the driver open the baggage compartment of the car, who refused. After his refusal the policeman demanded to carry out a body search on the driver. The driver demanded to see his police ID. The policeman refused and told the driver that he was being detained and asked him if he refused the search. The driver responded that he refused the body search. The policeman immediately informed the driver that he was detained, brutally grabbed him and handcuffed him on the road while shouting, “Now you’ll learn how to talk to policemen.” The driver’s pregnant wife was screaming and crying in panic.

The policeman then thoroughly searched the car, opening luggage, a wallet, and equipment that was in the baggage compartment.

At the completion of the search the policeman put the driver in the police car and told him that his detention was for “obstructing a policeman”.

When the driver asked to be released in light of his wife’s condition, the policeman replied, “Delete the video clip and I’ll release you!” The driver refused and only when his wife approached the policeman and requested that her husband be released because she was starting to feel pains, did the policeman acquiesce.

Selections from the complaint, which was filed with the assistance of Honenu Attorney Menasheh Yado: “Without any prior warning from the policeman, the policeman told the complainant, ‘All right, you are detained,’ and brutally grabbed the complainant.”

“Even if there had been a cause for the search… and also if there had been a cause to use force, which can be refuted, then using extreme physical force on a civilian must be a last resort and there must be a least a warning beforehand.”

The complainant in this incidence is a married 25-year old. He related his impression of the incident: “This was a difficult and humiliating experience, in which a policeman, who is supposed to represent the law, conducted himself brutally. I do not want to think about how the incident could have ended. It could have ended with a criminal case against me. I expect the police and the other relevant parties to handle this case with the utmost seriousness necessary to save other citizens from such violent conduct.”

In the second incident, which occurred on the same evening at the same intersection, the policeman illegally detained two couples, including a thorough search of their personal belongings and their equipment. The policeman was filmed refusing to give the detainees his name and the cause for searching their car. A policewoman at the scene conducted a body search on one of the women, who was pregnant, and demanded to look under her shirt.

In the third incidence, which occurred at the Shilo Junction and was also filmed, the policeman arrived at the hitch-hiking stop and found a youth and two minors. The policeman refused to identify himself and detained the three hitch-hikers for a search, which included a body search. As he was body searching one of the minors the policeman pulled his pants and looked under his underwear. The startled minor took a step back and to the surprise of all three of them, the policeman stated that he planned to search in their underwear and threatened them with detention at the police station if they refused. A transcription of the dialogue between the policeman and the minors is written in the complaint.

The minors: “What do you want to do to him? Search his in his underwear?”

The policeman: “Yes! A search in his underwear! And everything that I demand you will do! I am detaining you!”

The policeman to one of the minors: “You aren’t pulling down your underwear?”

The minor: “I won’t pull them down! I won’t pull them down!”

The policeman: “You won’t pull them down? You’re being detained at the station!”

The three hitch-hikers refused to have their underwear searched. After an additional search of their belongings and an additional body search on all three of them, the policeman released them.

Honenu Attorney Menasheh Yado, who filed the complaint on behalf of the complainants, stated that, “The disgraceful and ugly conduct of the policeman who was filmed brutally grabbing an innocent citizen without showing identification and without explaining why, acting on the stigma against youth with long peyos, and violating the rights of three families and numerous minors, and humiliating innocent citizens whom he is supposed to serve. These incidents should not have occurred. He is a hot-tempered and dangerous policeman who must not be allowed to come into contact with the general population. We must hope that the police will denounce the conduct of the policeman and will immediately take appropriate sanctions against him.”

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)