A strip search of a woman in the La Plata County jail usually went like this: undress, lift your right breast so a deputy can look underneath. Lift your left breast. Show behind your ears, in your mouth. Squat and cough. Bend over at the waist, spread your buttocks, let the deputy take a look there, too.

“It was so utterly violating,” said K.T., a woman jailed there in 2021 who is being identified by her initials to protect her privacy. It felt, in many ways, like a sexual assault, she said.

The strip search and her stint in jail as a 20-year-old had been the lowest moments of her life, she said. But last month, the now-25-year-old new mother learned that a La Plata County Sheriff’s Office commander allegedly viewed the body-worn camera footage of her strip search at least 50 times. Th

See Full Page