PITTSBURGH — A Western Pennsylvania police detective wrongly arrested and beat a woman with his flashlight and kicked her during a traffic stop that began when she was driving her father’s car with an expired registration after going to an evening Mass, the woman alleges in a federal civil rights lawsuit.

The lawsuit contends Indiana Borough Detective Scott Schuller, a 20-year veteran, falsely claimed the car’s license plate light wasn’t working properly as a pretense to make the stop.

The suit says the officer dragged Karissa Nikole Smith, then 23, from the car when she tried to phone her father after she was pulled over Nov. 1, 2013.

According to the complaint, Smith had attended a Mass with her parents, then prayed for deceased relatives at a cemetery and was giving a friend a ride back to the Indiana (Pa.) University campus in her dad’s car when the officer stopped her.

Schuller and his chief, William Sutton, on Wednesday referred questions to attorney Anthony Rash, who said he’s “confident that my clients will not be found liable in this matter.”

Rash said he couldn’t say whether Schuller was disciplined in connection with the traffic stop because it would be unethical to speak about a confidential personnel matter.

Smith’s lawsuit says Sutton “determined that Ms. Smith’s complaint against Schuller was founded and required disciplinary/corrective action.”

“Chief Sutton admits that Ms. Smith posed no threat and that Schuller struck her ‘several times with an impact weapon later determined to be a flashlight,”’ the lawsuit says, though it doesn’t make clear the source of the quoted information.