Bad lieutenant. Or sergeant, or officer, or whomever posted an "intimate" photo of a woman in the drunk tank to Facebook, according to an allegation.
Morgan Hill police are accused of going through the cell phone of Casey Serrano, 36, while the woman was in jail for being drunk and public. Police found an "intimate" photo of her on the phone and then posted it to Facebook, according to Dan Siegel, Serrano's attorney.
Police have admitted to making some kind of mistake when Serrano was in custody last July 16, but declined to say exactly what it was, only that "some mistakes were made by members of our agency and we held those members accountable," according to the San Jose Mercury News.
The city has also rejected an initial claim made by Serrano, so the next step is court, according to Siegel.
Police say Serrano was arrested for being drunk in public "for her own safety" after she tried to get into a patrol car. Serrano says she was arrested after she tried to take a cell phone picture of a patrol car blocking a driveway in a residential area of Morgan Hill.
Then, when she was in jail, the "intimate" photo appeared on Facebook.
Legal experts say that the California Supreme Court has argued that police can search the cell phones of people in custody without a warrant. Siegel argues that that case involved a drug dealer, which Serrano is not -- and law professors say that if her allegations are true, the police are in deep, deep trouble.
