Man Seeks Millions After N.M. Police Force Colonoscopy in Drug Search

[Silent_Bob]

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/11/05/man-seeks-millions-after-nm-police-force-colonoscopy-in-drug-search


Police forced New Mexico scrap metal tradesman David Eckert to undergo two digital anal probes, three enema insertions and ultimately a colonoscopy after officers incorrectly assumed he was concealing drugs, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on his behalf.

No drugs were found by police or doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, N.M. The exhaustive search began when Eckert allegedly rolled through a stop sign in Deming, N.M., on Jan. 2, 2013.

Albuquerque civil rights attorney Shannon Kennedy is representing Eckert and says she is seeking "in excess of $1 million in punitive damages alone" from the law enforcement and medical personnel responsible and their employers.

"We see this as a multimillion-dollar case," Kennedy said. "This is essentially medical anal rape, numerous times over a 12-hour period. I can't imagine anything more horrifying than what happened to our client. It's just sadistic."

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The apparent justification for the search, Kennedy said, was that police believed Eckert's buttocks were clenched during the traffic stop.

But, she said, it's also possible the officers just didn't like how her client looks.

"Maybe the officers who did this don't like him living in their community," said Kennedy. "He's a white boy, a scraggly white boy, and all these officers are Hispanic. It's a New Mexico thing."

Kennedy said her client, 63-years-old when he was detained, looks somewhat like rocker Tom Petty and says he denies standing with his buttocks clenched.

"I've never read anything like that before for probable cause," Kennedy said.

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In the search warrant affidavit that sought permission for an anal cavity probe, one police officer said he asked Eckert for permission to physically search him after the minor traffic stop. When Eckert refused, the document says, a police K-9 dog alerted them to the side of his car. Kennedy alleges the dog is not certified to search for drugs and may actually be a pet.

A judge granted the search warrant for the anal cavity probe, but not necessarily a colonoscopy.

Officers then transported Eckert to the Gila Regional Medical Center after an emergency room doctor at a Deming, N.M., hospital told them "this is unethical," Kennedy said. The doctor who refused to comply with police is willing to testify if the lawsuit goes to trial, according to Kennedy.

After arriving at the Gila facility, doctors examined Eckert's anal cavity twice with their fingers, put him through an x-ray scan and then inserted three rounds of enemas into his anus. After each enema, doctors examined the stool sample produced. Eckert was then given a second x-ray scan and forced to undergo a colonoscopy with anesthesia.

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It's unclear why the colonoscopy was necessary after enemas and x-rays did not reveal hidden drugs. Eckert was sent a $6,000 bill for the medical procedures he involuntarily underwent, his lawyer says.

Kennedy says her client lives in fear of retaliation yet wants to share his story "to protect others, to let them know this happened."

But, she says, he also wants to guard his privacy and doesn't want to be known as "the anally probed guy."

Eckert is suing three Deming, N.M., police officers, three Hidalgo County police officers, the Gila Regional Medical Center and Deputy District Attorney Daniel Dougherty, who helped secure the warrant. Kennedy filed a malpractice complaint with the state medical review commission Oct. 18 against the two doctors who performed the colonoscopy.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Saturnino Madero did not return a U.S. News request for comment. Deming Police Chief Brandon Gigante declined to comment on the case when reached by KOB-TV on Monday, simply saying, "We follow the law in every aspect and we follow policies and protocols that we have in place."

Kennedy filed a motion for summary judgment Oct. 24, asking the court to rule on the facts of the case, which she says are not disputed. She says defendants responded by expressing interest in resolving the case outside of court.

[WithoutAPaddle]

That particular drug sniffing dog has a history of false positive detections and was more than a year past due for his mandatory, annual certification.

Still, this story is wacky.  Why did it take ten months for it to surface?  Maybe the suspect/plaintiff has been trying to negotiate this lawsuit away in exchange for dropping other serious charges against him, or maybe it was just a matter of him having difficulty getting a lawyer to take this suit on contingency when all the deep pocketed parties seem to have sovereign immunity of one sort or another. 

Why are the national media so late to follow it even now?  The local TV station that broke this story, NBC's Albuquerque KOB 4.1,  did so on Monday evening, but when I searched out the town and Plaintiff's name 36 hours later, it still wasn't on the news sites of CBS, ABC or the New York Times, and the only mention of it on nbcnews.com was the link they furnished to their local affiliate's website.

While I can't in my wildest imagination conceive of additional facts that would warrant this intrusive a search, I still think that there is going to be something revealed that we haven't being told about that prompted these officers to use the bad judgement that they did.  I suspect that the police had initially committed some low level intrusion or violation of the suspect's rights and were concerned that if they came up empty handed, they would be in trouble for having done so, so they then searched in desperation for something -anything - that would justify what they had initially done, but if something isn't where you are looking for it... where you are hoping it to be... looking for it harder and harder isn't going to make it be there.

[KBCraig]

This wasn't the first time, either. At least one other victim has come forward.