Twenty women detained in San Francisco County Jail No. 2 filed a federal class action lawsuit Friday against the city, sheriff, sheriff’s department and individual deputies for allegedly violating multiple federal civil rights laws and policies during a mass strip search.
Women told Mission Local in November that, a year ago today, deputies forced them to strip down in front of each other while the deputies laughed and filmed them with body-worn cameras. The women said the alleged incident was just one example of ongoing harassment at the jail.
Their lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California, is demanding compensation, punitive damages and a jury trial.
Civil rights attorney Elizabeth Bertolino and personal injury attorneys Anthony Label and Molly Ryan filed the suit. The complete text of the lawsuit was not immediately available, but Bertolino filed a claim, the first step toward a lawsuit, with the city in November, Mission Local first reported.
“This Claim arises from a mass, unlawful, and degrading strip search of women housed in B-Pod of the San Francisco County Jail on May 22, 2025, and from the continuing harassment, intimidation, and gender-based violence by deputies in the days and weeks that followed,” Bertolino wrote in that claim.
Public outrage was immediate: Members of the Board of Supervisors demanded accountability, then, in March, held a hearing on conditions for incarcerated women. Advocates rallied outside the jail and then hand-delivered letters around City Hall. The sheriff’s department and Department of Police Accountability undertook investigations.
Meanwhile, illegal invasive searches continued, according to the two law firms now representing the women, Bertolino Law and the Veen Firm. Their complaint describes one deputy who, in July 2025, used a flashlight to illuminate one woman’s vagina, and another who refused to leave the hospital room as a mother received pelvic exams and breastfed her newborn in September 2025.
All of Us or None, a civil rights organization, has planned a vigil in support of the women between noon and 1:30 p.m. on Friday, at 425 Seventh St.
The women involved in the lawsuit claim that about a dozen deputies, both men and women, entered their housing unit without warning last May. One by one, women said they were directed to undress, squat, and cough while deputies watched. Women who were menstruating were forced to remove their tampons and pads, Bertolino said.
When a deputy asked a supervisor if she should deactivate her body worn camera, her supervisor allegedly told her no — the footage might be “used for training purposes,” “just like YouTube” and “just like ‘Cops’” the TV show, according to the complaint.
Women who filed grievances were allegedly placed in isolated units or removed from their work assignments.
If the allegations are substantiated and damages awarded, the city could owe the women millions. Similar past cases include a $53 million settlement paid by Los Angeles County in 2019 to a group of women who reported being strip-searched in front of male deputies.