LANCASTER, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – Weeks ago, Tyler Bailey, an attorney with Bailey Law Firm in Columbia, South Carolina, filed a federal lawsuit for Anaysheon Coffey, a Lancaster woman claiming a former police officer racially profiled her, ultimately leading to her arrest in August 2020.

“We need to make sure people are held accountable for violating rights and regular people because there’s a lot of adverse repercussions for regular people when they’re arrested when they should not be arrested,” Bailey said.

She’s suing the city of Lancaster, its police department, former officer Peter Beck and former Chief Scott Grant. The lawsuit alleges that officer Beck entered her home without a warrant.

“We all have an expectation of privacy in our home,” Bailey said. “So officers are allowed to just barge into our houses without any calls. We have a right to say no; you can’t come in unless there’s a warrant. Well, there was no warrant for Ms. Coffey’s house to be searched. Her house was searched. She was arrested and charged with criminal accusations that she was not guilty of committing.”

Queen City News first brought you this story in 2021.

21 Lancaster neighbors went front and center at a city council meeting to tell leaders how they felt Beck was singling them out.

He was accused then of pulling over black drivers for minor infractions as an excuse to question them and search their cars.

The neighbors had different accounts of interactions with the Lancaster officer. Some said he pulled them over multiple times with no ticket or citation, while others say he never pulled them over but did verbally harass them.

After neighbors asked the city to put a stop to it — the city offered beck $60,000 to resign.

However, with his resignation, Coffey’s 2020 charges were never dropped.

“When you have criminal charges that can really affect a lot of your life, your housing, being able to get a new job, applying for jobs,” Bailey said. “Eventually, through her own independent means, she found out around April of ’22 that her charges were officially off of the system, that they were not going to be prosecuted her further.”

He says the lawsuit details the violation of Coffey’s rights and the city’s role in the hiring, training, and supervising officer Beck and chief Grant.

Now Coffey is pushing for justice for herself and the rest of the city.

“This is a message for the city of Lancaster and surrounding communities that, you know, regular people when they’re wrong, you know, there needs to be some accountability,” Coffey said. “There needs to be some training for officers in the future so this doesn’t happen again.”