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Vol. 77/No. 44      December 9, 2013

 
New Mexico man files suit against
cops’ colonoscopy ‘drug search’
 
BY JOHN STUDER  
After pulling him over, saying he didn’t come to a full halt at a stop sign Jan. 2, cops in Deming, N.M., subjected David Eckert, 54, to the most egregious violations of Fourth Amendment protection from “unreasonable search and seizure.” On the excuse of looking for drugs, officers took Eckert to an area hospital, where, over his repeated objections, he was subjected to hours of body cavity searches, including two anal finger probes, three forced enemas and, still not satisfied, a colonoscopy.

After finding nothing, they let Eckert go. At cops’ suggestion, he received a hospital bill for more than $6,000, which was turned over to a collection agency.

Eckert has filed a lawsuit challenging the gross violation of his constitutional rights, demanding over $1 million in damages, against the cops, prosecutors, hospital and doctors who violated him.

“They seized him to collect evidence, to go on a fishing expedition on someone’s body,” Shannon Kennedy, Eckert’s lawyer, told the press.

Eckert was driving out of Walmart when he was stopped and ordered out of his car. In a statement he filed later, officer Robert Chavez said he noticed that Eckert was “clenching his buttocks.” The cops called in a drug-sniffing dog named Leo (whose credentials have since been questioned). Cops claim Leo smelled something on the driver’s seat.

When cops stopped Eckert four months earlier for a cracked windshield Leo supposedly smelled drugs then too. Police seized Eckert’s car and searched it, finding nothing.

This time they placed Eckert in “investigative detention” and convinced a judge to give them a search warrant “to include but not limited to [Eckert’s] anal cavity.” Without arresting Eckert, they took him to the Mimbres Memorial Hospital in Deming, but the emergency room doctor refused to do the procedure.

The cops then found a willing out-of-county hospital, the Gila Regional Medical Center, where he was worked over for five hours. When an X-ray was negative doctors did finger probes. When they were negative, they did three enemas. Another X-ray followed. Then he was drugged and subjected to a colonoscopy.

Deming Police Chief Brandon Gigante says his cops did everything “by the book.” Eckert’s lawsuit documents how the cops’ warrant was based on false claims, Leo’s license lapsed two years ago, the Gila Regional Medical Center is outside the warrant’s jurisdiction and ran out three hours before the colonoscopy began.

The law firm representing Eckert has filed suit on behalf of Timothy Young, who was stopped Oct. 13, 2012, by cops who said he made a turn without using his signal. After Leo supposedly smelled drugs, Young was taken to the Gila Regional Medical Center and subjected to X-rays and an anal probe.  
 
 
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