In October 2014, a black couple in South Carolina, Lakeya Hicks and Elijah Pontoon, accused four white officers of pulling them over and conducting a humiliating roadside body search, the Associated Press reports.
Hicks said that a female officer exposed her breasts to passerby, and Pontoon said another officer publicly searched his anal cavity. The officer believed he felt drugs, but according to Pontoon, the officer had his fingers on a hemorrhoid.
After the roadside search, no drugs were found in the couple's vehicle or on their person.
The couple filed a lawsuit against the department in the City of Aiken in federal court, and have now reached a settlement in that case.
While there was no body cam footage of the incident, audio recorded by the dash cam does exist.
"You gonna pay for this one boy," an officer said according to the lawsuit. The audio clearly contains one officer telling Pontoon that the officers had reason to be suspicious of him because of his "past history."
In his younger years, Pontoon was arrested on charges related to drugs, but has not had any trouble with the law in many years.
According to the lawsuit, the couple were told that they were stopped by the officers for having a paper license plate tag. However, this reason is clouded by one of the officers mentioning during the stop that he recognized Pontoon from the days before he reformed.
In addition to the cavity search, the couple's car was sniffed by police dogs, and the two were detained in the back of the police cars.
In an interview with Associated Press in 2016, Hicks said, "I felt very humiliated. We don't want this to happen to anybody else."
The settlement amount has not been officially released, but insurance documents state that the couple will receive $150,000.