UPDATE: The BRPD said Wednesday that an internal affairs investigation has been opened concerning the new allegations that an 11-year-old was strip-searched at the BRAVE Cave. 

This is a breaking update. Read WBRZ's original story below.

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BATON ROUGE - A new federal lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that a Baton Rouge Police officer strip-searched an 11-year-old boy after the Street Crimes unit and SRT team conducted an early-morning raid on a house last summer.

Lakeisha Varnado and Tredonovan Raby, on behalf of themselves and their children, claim officers violated their constitutional rights during the June 6 raid. 

The lawsuit, filed against officers Joseph Carboni, Lorenzo Coleman, Tafari Beard and two other unknown officers, details when BRPD stormed into Varnando's home during the early morning hours of June 6, 2023. They said officers broke through the windows and doors. 

The lawsuit alleges Varnado's 11-year-old son was in his room when officers yelled at him to come out with his hands up. Wearing only his underwear, he was taken from the home and put into a BRPD unit. 

The lawsuit says the two other children assumed the home was being burglarized and made a run for it. One of them was hit in the face with a taser. The other was tackled by an officer and beaten while lying on the kitchen floor. 

Documents said after two hours of sobbing in the police car and watching his brother being hit by an officer, the 11-year-old was escorted inside his home where he was allowed to put on clothes. Shortly after he returned to a BRPD unit, the family was taken to the 'BRAVE Cave.' Officers left the home unlocked, with the windows broken. 

The plaintiffs allege that while in the makeshift interrogation warehouse, Ms. Varnado was strip-searched and body-cavity searched by officer Carboni, who later strip-searched and sexually assaulted her son. 

The 11-year-old "asserts that the 'white dude with a beard, he told me to strip my clothes so he could search me," the lawsuit says. "The white man, he told me to, and I did. ... That's when he started touching on me and stuff. He touched my private area like here," he said.

The lawsuit also claims that one of the other children was put into a holding cell and beaten by officer Coleman so hard that he was knocked out. 

No body camera video or audio was recorded. 

BRPD has been on notice since at least 2016 to conduct strip searches only when they are truly necessary.

U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, to whom this latest case was assigned, said in court that she was alarmed by a police officer's admission that it was common practice for him and others to perform strip searches on people being detained.

And BRPD policy notes that arrestees should not be strip-searched unless there is a specific reason to believe that a detained person has concealed a weapon or contraband.

Varnado and Raby say those conditions didn't exist last June. They also note that after an incident from 2021, police sought a contempt finding against a lawyer who had made the incident public. 

"This sent a clear messages to BRPD officers: if you engage in illegal strip-searches you will not be punished," they say in their lawsuit.

According to parish court records, BRPD officers went to Varnado's home one week before the SRT team arrived. A probable cause form says that officers went to the home just before 2 a.m. May 31 due to ShotSpotter activation in the area. Officers found evidence that 22 rounds had been fired near their home and got a search warrant for the home. 

The warrant, filed by BRPD officers and signed by officer Beard, said that Street Crimes and SRT unit officers went to the home just before 6 a.m. June 6 to execute the warrant. Officers noted that some of the suspects ran away from the house with guns and five subjects were apprehended without incident. Officers said they found six guns in the home, multiple magazines and rounds of ammunition. 

Documents said the group was taken in police cars to the "Street Crimes Processing Office." While there, officers prepared "DNA Search warrants" for those taken into custody. Paperwork said Ms. Varnado's DNA was taken by a Buccal swab, which takes DNA from a person's cheek or mouth. There was no mention of body cavity searches or beatings. 

Two of Ms. Varnado's children were booked for gun-related charges and she was booked for improper supervision of a minor—which was dismissed.