Myrtle Beach police pulled guns on 2 unarmed women during traffic stop, lawsuit claims
Myrtle Beach police pulled their guns on two unarmed women during a routine traffic stop, a lawsuit states.
Nervan Ibrahim, 43, and her 19-year-old daughter, Sandra Ataalla, were driving a rented car near the 2500 block of U.S. 501 when police pulled them over, according to the suit filed Friday against the city of Myrtle Beach. The license plate on the car had previously been reported stolen but was later reported found on Feb. 10, 2020.
According to the suit, the Horry County Sheriff’s Office didn’t remove the plate from the missing database “in a timely manner,” which caused Ibrahim and her daughter to be pulled over on Feb. 25.
Once they pulled their car to the side of the road, none of the officers who responded to the call approached the vehicle to tell them why they had been stopped, dashcam footage obtained by The Sun News shows. Instead, the officers stayed by their cars with their guns drawn, yelling commands to Ibrahim, who said she couldn’t hear them.
Police instructed her to exit the car, then handcuffed her and put her in the back of a patrol car, without giving her a reason, dashcam footage shows. Then Ataala was handcuffed and put into a separate patrol car.
Ibrahim can be heard in the back of the patrol car as they handcuffed her daughter. “Oh my god what is going on?”
An officer later explained why Ibrahim had been handcuffed and led at gunpoint, “to keep everyone safe,” he said.
The owner of the rental car service arrived and confirmed the plates were not stolen and offered to give the victims a ride back to their home, the suit states.
According to the lawsuit, officers can be heard on body cam footage responding, “I mean I would, I would give them a ride … yeah definitely give them a ride back to their car … because that’s a huge law suit dude.”
“This is going to be bad,” another responded.
The officers then muted their body cameras, but they can be seen smiling over the next two minutes of muted video, after the situation had been deescalated, footage shows.
The victims are suing the city, Horry County and the sheriffs office along with the Myrtle Beach police department for damages and also demanding a trial by jury for the officers involved, the suit states.
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 10:58 AM.
