DC settles case after Black man says cop prodded him in the anus during search
A Black man who said that a Metro DC cop unlawfully prodded him in his anus repeatedly while he was being searched, sued and has recently settled with the city, the Daily Mail reports.
M.B. Cottingham was awarded an undisclosed amount from the city of Washington, D.C., resulting from a weapons search that ended with a police officer from the Metropolitan Police Department fondling the man in his anal cavity.
Cottingham sued and the American Civil Liberties Union D.C. announced last week that the city will admit no wrongdoing but settled the 2017 case. Officer Sean Lojacono of the MPD, also denied touching Cottingham inappropriately.
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Cottingham, 40, who is also an ice cream vendor, says the search was racially motivated.
According to the ACLU, before the incident, Cottingham was speaking with friends about his upcoming birthday plans when two police cars rolled up.
“The thought that kept running across my mind is “they gonna kill you,” so I thought about teddy bears being up under the tree or becoming a hashtag,” Cottingham states in the ACLU video discussing his case, along with images of Black Lives Matter memorials and protests.
“Like many African-American men in the District, Mr. Cottingham has endured intrusive police stops-and-frisks on a regular basis for years, and his experience is, we believe, emblematic of a problematic police culture in the District in which residents are too often disrespected and viewed as potential suspects rather than as community members and neighbors,” the ACLU said in a statement about the troubling case.
A video of the incident shows Lojacono’s touching Cottingham’s groin area as he objected and asked him to stop.
“Stop fingering me though, bruh,” Cottingham says in the video.
“I’m outside your pants, bro,” Lojacono says to Cottingham.
“Don’t sit here and finger my a— like that, like I’m a man,” Cottingham says protesting.
He is then uncuffed and released after they go back and forth but eventually was not charged.
“The most important thing to me is that Officer Lojacono can’t do this to anyone else,” said Cottingham in the ACLU statement. “I filed this lawsuit because I want policing in D.C. to change.”
Cottingham reportedly had a legal amount of marijuana on hand and agreed to the search in order to de-escalate the situation.
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“It looked like it was an inappropriate touching by the officer,” MPD Chief Peter Newsham said at a D.C. Council hearing after seeing the video, according to the ACLU.
“The fact that the settlement was reached on the eve of the District’s deadline to disclose information about Officer Lojacono’s extensive disciplinary history suggests MPD officials were worried what the documents would show regarding how long they ignored or tolerated his problematic behavior,” said Scott Michelman, Legal Co-Director, ACLU-DC.
According to the Daily Mail, MPD announced in September that Lojacono would be terminated but he is fighting the firing. He is currently on administrative leave.
