A Louisiana police officer is accused of illegally strip-searching an 11-year-old boy in the bathroom of a law enforcement facility described as a “torture” warehouse, according to a new federal lawsuit.

The same officer also performed a strip and body cavity search of the child’s mother at the Baton Rouge Police Department’s warehouse — infamously known as the “BRAVE Cave” — in June 2023, according to a complaint filed Feb. 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

The mother and her three minor sons were detained at the facility, which was shut down in September after “horrors,” including illegal strip searches, were made public, the complaint says.

POLICE DETAIN THE WOMAN AND HER CHILDREN

The morning of June 6, the woman and her three minor sons were awakened by police officers “bursting into the front door and windows” of their East Baton Rouge home, the complaint says.

According to the Baton Rouge Police Department, detectives obtained a search warrant for the home after complaints were made about minors firing weapons near the residence and after related reports from ShotSpotter, a system that detects gunfire.

The woman’s two teenage sons were accused of being connected to the weapons, Thompson said.

When officers executed the search warrant, the woman’s 15-year-old and 17-year-old thought a burglary was underway and tried to flee, according to the complaint, which says the officers then detained them.

One officer is accused of hitting the 15-year-old in the face with a taser and handcuffing him, while the complaint says another officer tackled his older brother and repeatedly hit him in the face. These officers weren’t identified in the complaint.

Meanwhile, the 11-year-old, who was sobbing and in his underwear, was detained in the back of a police car, the complaint says.

An “unknown” officer eventually told the boy to “shut the ‘h’ up” and “go put clothes on,” according to the complaint, which says the child was then escorted into his home to get clothes. 

Afterward, the mother and her three children were taken to the “BRAVE Cave,” the complaint says.

The execution of the search warrant on June 6 resulted in police arresting five “juvenile suspects for gun-related charges” and the woman for “improper supervision of minors,” according to police, who said five handguns and a rifle were seized.

The morning of Feb. 20, police received an online internal affairs complaint, with the lawsuit attached, filed on behalf of the woman and her children, the release said.

The complaint was “immediately assigned to internal affairs to begin a thorough investigation,” according to Police Chief Thomas S. Morse Jr.

“Upon completion of the investigation, we are committed to being transparent in our findings,” police said.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE ‘BRAVE CAVE,’ ACCORDING TO THE SUIT

Several officers, including police Lt. Lorenzo Coleman and Officer Tafari Beard, transported the woman and her sons to the “BRAVE Cave,” that day, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit names Coleman, Beard, Officer Joseph Carboni, who’s accused of sexually battering the 11-year-old, and Baton Rouge as defendants.

At the warehouse, Carboni is accused of strip-searching the woman away from her sons, according to the complaint.

He “was silently preying on (her 11-year-old son) and waiting for the right moment to strike,” the complaint says. 

When the boy asked to use the restroom, Carboni is accused of taking him to a bathroom “out of sight” and making him take off his clothes for a search, according to the complaint. 

“That’s when he started touching on me and stuff. He touched my private area like here (gestures to genitals),” the boy said during a psychological evaluation conducted by the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center’s Department of Psychiatry, the complaint says.

Meanwhile, Coleman is accused of separating the boy’s 15-year-old brother, who was in handcuffs, from his mother and dragging him into a holding cell, according to the lawsuit. 

“While in the cell Coleman choked and punched the child so hard that it rendered him unconscious,” the complaint says.

This case is the fourth lawsuit Thompson has filed over the “BRAVE Cave,” he said.

The facility was used by the police department’s Street Crimes Unit, which the department said has since been “disbanded and reassigned,” The New York Times reported Sept. 24.

When the woman and her sons were detained at the warehouse, the department had a policy of carrying out “illegal strip searches” based on “reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing,” according to the complaint. 

Even if the woman’s sons were “in possession of those firearms, that doesn’t justify the constitutional violations, the treatment, the criminal activity,” Thompson said.

OTHER LAWSUITS

Another woman, Ternell L. Brown, filed a similar lawsuit in September, saying she was strip-searched at the warehouse, The New York Times reported.

On Aug. 29, a man named Jeremy Lee filed a lawsuit over how he said he was detained at the “BRAVE Cave” and badly beaten, according to the newspaper.