In short, they claim, their civil rights were violated.
Dana Skubon, Susan Bimler and Kendra Klahr, who share a home in Millersville, accused police Sgt. Mark Peifer and Officer Brian Tatara of illegally entering their home and their bedroom around 3 a.m. on Sept. 3, 2005.
Saying he was looking for “a streaker,’’ Peifer asked the women to turn around and show him their buttocks, so he could compare it with a suspect he had seen earlier in the evening, according to the lawsuit filed last month.
Police Chief John D. Rochat, who was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit for employing the officers, referred all questions to the borough’s solicitor, James Young.
Young declined comment, saying he would have a response to the allegations in court. J. Dwight Yoder, the attorney for the women, also could not be reached for comment.
According to the lawsuit, Skubon and her roommates had fallen asleep around 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 2, 2005 in a second floor bedroom.
At some point, around 3 a.m., Skubon said she was awakened by a sound and looked down the stairs to see two uniformed policemen standing inside the doorway.
The men identified themselves as police and ordered Skubon to come down, according to documents.
But Skubon said she was frightened, according to the lawsuit, and went back to the bedroom, shut the door and crawled back in bed.
Within minutes, the officers came upstairs, opened the bedroom door and shone their flashlights in the womens’ faces, ordering them into the living room.
“Confused and scared,’’ the women complied, according to the lawsuit.
Peifer then told them to get identification, which they did.
Bimler and Klahr are students at Millersville University, according to documents, while Skubon works as a surgery tech clerk at a local hospital.
When Skubon produced hospital identification instead of a driver’s license, she said Peifer followed her back into her bedroom, accusing her of “streaking’’ in the neighborhood.
The policeman “pressured her,’’ Skubon claims, saying, “ ‘Tell me it was you, don’t lie to me. I know it was you,’ ’’ according to the lawsuit.
Skubon responded by saying she didn’t know what he was talking about, according to documents, to which Peifer told her, “If you like, I will read you your Miranda rights.’’
Extremely frightened, Skubon began to cry. Peifer told her to return to the living room with the other women, checking their driver’s license numbers over the police radio.
Then, according to the lawsuit, Peifer asked the women to stand up and turn around so he “could observe their buttocks.’’
“Peifer said he saw a girl outside in a G-string and he thought he would know her from behind...Peifer then proceeded to observe all three (women’s) buttocks and commented how Skubon’s shape was different from the others.
“Peifer then stated that he was going to check the community pool and if there was any damage to the pool he would come back and slap handcuffs on Skubon and arrest her.’’
The policemen then left the women’s home. The episode lasted about 45 minutes, according to the lawsuit.
Court documents offer no explanation as to why the policemen would have allegedly gone to the women’s home or why they entered the residence.
The lawsuit claims the policemen violated the women’s civil rights by illegally entering their home and their bedroom without a search warrant.
The women seek compensatory and punitive damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and court costs, for the officers’ “outrageous conduct,’’ which they say left them “distressed, scared and humiliated.’’ They added that they were “terrified and felt completely violated.’’
Peifer, a 26-year veteran of the police department, was named Officer of the Year in 1995. Tatara was recognized in 2004 as one of the county’s Top Gun police officers for a high number of drunken driving arrests.
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