Multiple Gainesville police officers have received written warnings following an internal investigation into the measuring of several female entertainers’ thongs during a surprise inspection at a local gentlemen’s club.
Cpl. Brooke Shutterly and officer Emma Spaulding responded to a noise complaint at Coconut Cabaret: A Gentlemen’s Club on July 31, 2022. During the response, one of the officers reported seeing a half-nude woman dancing. This led to a surprise visit on Aug. 13, 2022, when three GPD officers, Shutterly, Spaulding and officer Tommy Alvin, arrived to perform a surprise inspection to determine whether the club was complying with Gainesville restrictions around public nudity, according to the internal affairs report.
During the inspection, the three women were forcefully bent over and had their thongs measured after police said they had received reports of nudity at the club. The department couldn’t verify the reports — and the interaction was caught on camera.
Alison Robbins was one of the women involved in the police inspection. She was one of three dancers who spoke with WUFT about that night.
“It was disgusting …honestly,” Robbins said, “and it really made me feel like I can’t feel protected with the police department here in this town.”
After the surprise search, the dancers and club owners filed five formal complaints with the Gainesville Police Department, leading to an internal affairs investigation.
The investigation, which concluded in February, found that Shutterly and Alvin’s conduct that night violated GPD policy prohibiting body cavity searches and strip searches in the field.
They received written warnings.
Body camera footage does not show nudity at the club or among any of the dancers whom the officers saw that night, according to the internal affairs report. Investigators indicated they couldn’t determine the source of the nudity claim.
On the night of Aug. 13, three officers — Shutterly, Spaulding and Alvin — arrived to perform the surprise inspection to determine whether the club was in compliance with Gainesville’s rules around public nudity, according to the internal affairs report.
The officers found no violations of the city’s regulations that night, according to the internal investigation.
Body camera footage reveals that the officers made the three women bend over during the inspection and measured their underwear. In the body camera footage, Aliyha Nichols, one of the women inspected, can be heard saying, “I gotta bend over?” Shutterly then pushes her down to make her bend over.
In some instances, Shutterly can be seen struggling to get to the fabric between the women’s buttocks and uses her hands and fingers to lift and spread the woman’s backside to measure the material.
“As soon as they said I needed to just stand still, put my hands up and bend over, I wanted to leave,” dancer Brittney Cunningham said. “I wanted to leave after they left because I didn’t feel like performing anymore.”
In the footage, the women plead with the officers to allow them to change out of their underwear and hand the items over to be measured.
“We asked them if we could take them off and, like, change into shorts and just give them the underwear to measure,” Robbins said. “And they said no.”
Shutterly said in the internal affairs report that she believed it would be quicker if she measured the underwear on their person.
What can also be seen in the body camera footage is the male officer, Alvin, standing inside the room, blocking the exit, and watching the events unfold.
The report states that Alvin was there to serve as backup for the two female officers. While Shutterly is measuring the women’s underwear, she can be heard making remarks to them, especially Cunningham, about their bodies and occupation.
“I could never do it. I respect you immensely for it. I could never do it,” Shutterly said.
When Shutterly was asked during the internal affairs investigation why she made these statements to Cunningham, she said Cunningham is “anatomically gifted.”
“I started doing this because I had to,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham said she felt so violated after the inspection that she took time off work. Nichols didn’t return to work at all.
“I took two weekends off to just like refocus, I guess,” Cunningham said, “I felt judged. And then it’s, is this what I really want to do?”