Cody Dulaney

CDULANEY@NEWS-PRESS.COM

Body camera footage shows Fort Myers police officers reaching inside the underwear of Michael McDonald, who was shouting that officers were searching his anus for drugs on the side of the road.

Fort Myers police released the body camera footage Thursday from five officers, as well as footage from a dashboard camera, after amateur video circulating on the Internet claims to show a cavity search conducted on McDonald in a neighborhood where residents gathered to watch.

McDonald later said three officers held him on the hood of a patrol car while one went under his pants feeling his scrotum and rectum. He said the officer put a finger in his rectum. “I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it,” he said.

But video filmed from the chest of police officers doesn’t show a cavity search.

Police officers had their hands snaked through McDonald’s shorts from the top and bottom, and they used a knife to cut drugs out of a pocket stitched into his underwear. Officers can be heard saying on video the pocket was stitched into his underwear near his scrotum. McDonald’s shorts were never pulled down and he was never exposed.

But when one officer asked what happened after arriving late, Fort Myers police Officer Brandon Birch said, “He had a bunch of dope up his (butt).”

And because McDonald was clinching his buttocks, officers said, they thought that’s where he may be hiding it.

WARNING: This video is raw and uncut. It contains obscene language that may be offensive to some viewers.

While bent over the hood, McDonald told police he had marijuana in the trunk.

“Yeah, but what’s in your butt,” Birch asked.

“I don’t have anything in my butt,” McDonald replied.

“Yeah, now you’re lying,” Birch said.

McDonald, 30, of Fort Myers, was pulled over by the Fort Myers and Lee County joint task force for running a stop sign on Dec. 16.

After police signaled for McDonald to pull over, his car started to drift into the oncoming lane. Police approached the car once stopped and immediately put him in handcuffs, saying the car smelled like marijuana.

While Birch searched the car, another officer conducted a pat down search. In the background, the officer can be heard saying, “He’s got something in his butt.”

Both officers converged on McDonald and held him down to continue the search. McDonald started reaching for something and officers tightened their grasp, pushing his handcuffed arms straight up into the air. They continued to ask what’s hidden in his anus, and when officers reached up into his shorts, McDonald started screaming and wailing.

WARNING: This video is raw and uncut. It contains obscene language that may be offensive to some viewers.

“I can’t feel my hands, sir,” McDonald shouted. “I don’t have anything, I’m telling you it’s in the car … why are you stripping me?”

By this time, several officers were holding down McDonald on the hood of the patrol car while residents were starting to gather and watch as he screamed and writhed around.

At one point, officers loosened the handcuffs to allow McDonald to reach in the front of his pants to hand over a bag of marijuana. But that wasn’t the end of it.

Police continued to search his shorts and one officer said, “He’s got something bunched up in there.”

They struggled to keep McDonald still, who was now shouting to the bystanders, “He’s all in my butthole, man.”

“Why am I being harassed?” McDonald asked the officers.

“You’re not being harassed you're being searched,” one officer said. “Just relax.”

Police held McDonald’s legs up while one officer manipulated a bulge in his underwear to the edge of his shorts and cut out a clear plastic bag that police said contained crack.

From the time McDonald was pulled over until he was put in the back of the police car, the incident lasted about 13 minutes. But a dozen police officers responded to the scene and several police vehicles blocked the roadway.

McDonald was charged with possession with intent to sell, manufacture or deliver cocaine and heroin, marijuana possession, and resisting an officer with violence.

Some officers can be heard taunting the nearly dozen residents gathered outside to watch the scene unfold.

“So this is a resident lawyer,” Officer Jack Millard said to a resident who was questioning the alleged cavity search. “You don’t sound like you know anything, like, not at all.”

When McDonald was in the back of the car, one officer flashed a bag of drugs to the residents.

“We do not ever, ever give up,” one officer said. “We are the police, we don’t ever give up.”

—Connect with this reporter on Twitter @dulaneycd.