A rendering in a lawsuit depicts an etching of the Nazi "SS" symbol found on a North Charleston police flashlight. The suit alleged that the term "The Wig Splitter" referred to the flashlight's use in beating minority suspects.
The flashlight, Peper said, had been assigned to a cruiser used by at least two other officers over a decade. No information indicated who might have actually been using it, he said.
Pinning the flashlight on Hair, his attorney said, deflected attention from the possibility that other officers might have used it against Terry. The existence of "The Wig Splitter," the lawsuit added, "corroborates the inherent truth ... of racial discrimination" in the police force.