The city of San Antonio is looking into paying out a $205,000 settlement to citizen Natalie D. Simms. In March of last year, Simms filed a federal lawsuit against San Antonio’s police department for violating her civil rights during an incident back in 2016. The San Antonio Current reports that the city council’s Thursday agenda has a vote penciled in for paying out the settlement from the city’s Self-Insurance Liability Fund.
According to the lawsuit, Simms was on her phone, waiting for her boyfriend, and sitting outside on a curb across the street from her car, when she was approached by San Antonio’s finest. The police had decided that Simms might have drugs. Simms consented to a search of her vehicle—parked across the street at the time. The police found nothing in Simms’ car. They were not satisfied with this outcome and called in then San Antonio police officer Mara Wilson to search Simms’ person. According to audio recording from Wilson’s body camera, and Simms’ lawsuit, Wilson pulled out a bloody tampon from Simms’ vagina, in order to search her vagina, on the street, with no medical personnel around, in front of the other officers. Wilson then dangled the tampon in front of Simms while continuing to ask “rhetorical” questions of Simms in front of the other officers. Wilson allegedly attempted to begin searching Simms’ anus, when Simms’ objections became more fervent and the search stopped.
Officer Wilson retired in 2017, after 32 years on the force. She received zero reprimand or punishment for the incident, according to Simms’ lawsuit. Natalie Simms is now 40. Whether or not she is considering this settlement offer has not yet been reported. Similar incidents have been reported over the years begging the question: what would honestly be worth finding in order to so abjectly violate someone’s rights? Maybe a nuclear bomb?