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After traffic stop, man forced to have x-ray, enema, anal probes and colonoscopy
- hobs 13y agoHoly fuck. Sue them for everything, I mean EVERYTHING.
- pstuart 13y agoThe problem is that the public pays, and the guilty parties do not. What is needed is a standard of liability insurance for police departments that is paid for by their pension fund.
- hobs 13y agoI did mull this over when I wrote the post, and it is something I do consider, but I cant say "Oh dont sue me because I my tax dollars will go to repair the screwed up damage the society I support decided to support." Hopefully this guy getting ten million dollars will make the citizens revolt AT the police agency, and drive the stake deep. I do agree we need a standard of liability, but who is going to start the groundswell to make that happen? People only care when their pocketbooks are on the line as far as I can tell.
- thex86 13y agoUnless the people involved are SUSPENDED, there is no justice.
- rhizome 13y agoUh no: every officer should lose their cert, and every medical person lose their license.
- reginaldjcooper 13y agoThey also need to be imprisoned just as any other group of rapists would.
- rhizome 13y agoBeing convicted of a felony is pretty much the only way a law enforcement officer can lose their cert anymore.
- mrab 13y agoIn this circumstance, I hate to defend those that did what they did. The comment above about authoritarian followers is a good explanation as to why the officers/medical staff would comply. But I could see how one would comply, not to serve or aid, but out of fear or simply the with the perception that they _had_ to comply.
- Zikes 13y agoDoctors command an astounding level of respect and trust, and both are necessary for their profession to even exist. If I cannot trust a doctor while I am unconscious or otherwise vulnerable, then I would be putting myself at risk by avoiding seeking medical help if it became necessary. That level of trust is so high, I don't think it would be a stretch to think many people would expect a doctor to put a patient's needs and wellbeing above their own. These doctors may have risked their livelihoods or their freedom by refusing to comply, but they knew full well the actual harm they would do if they did comply. They should be held accountable.
- rhizome 13y agoThese doctors may have risked their livelihoods or their freedom by refusing to comply Yeah, no. The first doctor is home right now, sleeping well, knowing s/he did the right thing by refusing to comply. The cops didn't have shit, the second hospital doctors completely abdicated their responsibilities absent any compelling interest and they went along with it because they wanted to, because they found a good enough reason. How do I know? Because the existence of the first doctor(s) proves they could have said "no."
- Zikes 13y agoWhen the cops haul a man in for "standing funny", anything you do to oppose their will is painting a target on your back. The first doctor got away with it because the other doctors went along with the officers' demands. If everyone had refused they would have been ethically in the right, but you can be assured the authorities would have reacted far less favorably.
- chrislipa 13y agoSuspension is not nearly enough. They broke the law and should be prosecuted.
- rdl 13y agoI was trying to decide if this was appropriate to post to hn. It shocked the conscience to the extent that people I know who are involved in government/mil/etc were discussing how they would have responded; it is basically rape under color of law. Even more amazingly, it wasn't one officer alone by the side of the road in an ambiguous circumstance; there was a judge, a DA, multiple officers from several departments, two medical facilities, etc involved. A civil suit is inadequate; state or federal criminal investigations should be forthcoming. It is possible there is a reasonable explanation, but an investigation is the only way to determine that.
- DannyBee 13y agoThere are so so many things wrong with this situation i don't even know where to begin. The judge granted a warrant, an almost facially invalid one (and it turns out, completely invalid for other reasons), but will still be immune from anything here. The DA will be immune from anything here. The Officers will claim qualified immunity, and may or may not win. At least there is supreme court precedent that should have put them on notice: Winston v. Lee - 470 U.S. 753 (1985) "(a) A compelled surgical intrusion into an individual's body for evidence implicates expectations of privacy and security of such magnitude that the intrusion may be "unreasonable" even if likely to produce evidence" Here, it wasn't even likely to produce evidence. The doctor will certainly be sued for, among other things, battery, false imprisonment, etc. (Looks close, they threw some other stuff in there. Here is the complaint: http://www.scribd.com/doc/181747773/Complaint-David-Eckert-v-City-of-Deming-Hildago-County-Gila-Regional-Medical-Center http://www.scribd.com/doc/181747773/Complaint-David-Eckert-v... )
- rdl 13y agoThe ironic thing is the whole expedition was to produce evidence for a criminal trial, so unless stuff gets "lost" everything will be well documented. If things do get lost, people pretty much need to hang.
- zachrose 13y agoThe professional breaches of ethics are shocking and horrible, but the worst part of this is that it's bad test case for the legality of more and more invasive/dangerous bodily searches. If the warrant was invalid to begin with, my concern is that a court won't be able to strike down the medical procedures as unconstitutional because the search itself was unconstitutional on simpler grounds. I hope Eckert will win a civil suit, but my guess is that the worst part of this story will be the lack of deep constitutional scrutiny. I am not a lawyer.
- bobbles 13y ago""We follow the law in every aspect and we follow policies and protocols that we have in place," Chief Gigante replied. "Do you think those officers in this particular case did that?" Ramirez asked. Gigante didn't answer, instead he referred Ramirez to his attorney."
- Zikes 13y ago"We follow the law, except when we don't." It's simple, really.
- aktiur 13y agoAnd that's the only sensible reaction when you are asked about an ongoing litigation by the press. Hard to blame him for that second answer.
- hga 13y agoWhy should the police department fight the lawsuit tooth and nail, assuming they're sufficiently sure of the facts? Do they think this will make it significantly less likely they'll lose? If not, they ought to think about damage mitigation, both to their public image and in what they'll have to pay out, i.e. a jury will presumably award smaller damages against a department that shows contrition. This sort of non-response just screams "We're guilty and top to bottom corrupt" ... not the sort of thing that will end well.
- justanother 13y agoSo this man had nothing to hide?
- justinmk 13y agoHe resisted, so clearly he had something to hide.
- RexRollman 13y agoCorrect. Only the guilty have something to hide.
- shirkey 13y agoYes, everyone should allow themselves to be subjected to a physical cavity search unless they have something to hide /sarc
- moocowduckquack 13y agoNo, resisting means you don't want to be subject to force. You are possibly confused with being evasive.
- Malician 13y agoI am fairly sure this is sarcasm, and I hope so, but Poe's law...
- laichzeit0 13y agoWe should all resist, especially if we have nothing to hide. To the point where it no longer makes sense for someone to say: "they obviously have something to hide", because the norm has been destroyed.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoWords fail. The doctors are even trying to bill him for the procedure.
- RexRollman 13y agoI couldn't believe that when I read it. If anything, they should be billing the police, considering they were the ones who requested the procedure.
- runevault 13y agoIn some ways that is the most staggering thing of all. They assaulted the man and did horrible things against his will, and now they're attempting to charge him money for the privilege?
- philwelch 13y agoThis reminds me of the old horror story they used to tell about China, that when they'd execute a prisoner they'd send a bill to his family for the cost of the bullet.
- nichtich 13y agoThe story is sadly true, and in some places it's the only information the family gets on when the execution is/was performed.
- hga 13y agoMaybe they're hoping for some coverage from the malpractice insurers? Not that I think that'll get very far, perhaps another lawsuit or 5 to try to force them, but if they don't bill the guy they wouldn't have a claim against them to begin with, I'd suspect.
- reeses 13y agoWhile some of the procedures may fall under malpractice (multiple enemas, surgical sedation without consent), they're definitely violations of the AMA's professional conduct and ethics oaths. In re the billing, it's probably an automatic thing from the hospital itself, rather than the physicians. Attorneys had to be falling over each other trying to get to this client.
- molecule 13y agoprior post and discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6677664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6677664
- jstalin 13y agoAll involved will likely be promoted and cited for their courageous pursuit of justice.
- patrickg_zill 13y agoSuing is not enough. This sort of egregious behavior won't stop until people go to jail. The cops involved should be fired for cause - which means, they will never be hired by any other force in the USA.
- NoPiece 13y agoHe'd be justified to go get a gun and kill the people involved.
- evanmoran 13y agoNo he wouldn't. What happened was horrible beyond words, but that does not justify murder.
- hga 13y agoJustified or not, "If This Goes On..." eventually the moral calculus is going to shift to where that's an acceptable response, and one sufficiently supported by the population that solving many such crimes will become very, very difficult. There are many consequences to excesses by the state like this case, and this is probably one of the more minor ones.
- patrickg_zill 13y agoWhat happened was pretty much rape... and rape used to be a capital crime, for which you could in fact get the death penalty. Strangely, it was struck down in 1977.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> and rape used to be a capital crime, for which you could in fact get the death penalty. All felonies used to be capital crimes, for which you could in fact get the death penalty.
- rcfox 13y agoI realize that it's human nature to want to discuss disturbing things like this, and that hackers fall under the category of humans, but this is really off-topic for Hacker News. There's no intellectual discourse to be had here; it's just the dissemination of fear.
- Zikes 13y agoMany hackers have a vested interest in the development and progress of society as a whole. It's extremely evident in open source communities, especially. Matters such as this highlight major problems with society, and many hackers feel a personal responsibility to address those problems in some way, whether that be by reasoned discussion, protest, or various forms of support for larger causes formed to deal with those problems. This is not fearmongering, this is shining a very bright light on an issue that has spent far too long in the dark.
- bradleysmith 13y agoI hear what you're saying, but respectfully disagree. I love to hear about failures in human systems above all else, and value HN's ability to find them for me.
- vacri 13y agoPlease don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- GhotiFish 13y agoi keep forgeting about that little feature. Will do. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
- zequel 13y agoEVEN IF he did had drugs in there, this would still be not right to me. Aren't there more effective ways than this to combat drugs? Let it go. IMO, everyone related to this case (besides the victim) should be fired, divorced and ostracized. Sounds like a DOJ case.
- wissler 13y agoIt is not just about these cops, these doctors, or this judge. It is about institutional rot, a rot so wide and deep that to point it out will get you scorn and ridicule in most quarters.
- hga 13y agoI've often found a ... well, not denial, but a lot of people who just don't want to hear about it. They have no trouble believing it, but doing anything other than keeping their heads down and ignoring it is at this time impossible.
- wissler 13y agoIf most people don't have trouble believing it -- then that's not the real problem.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoWell, I know that the words "police state.." should be followed by something the police stated when discussing things like this, unless I want the discussion to end up with countless people pointing out that it is nothing like as bad as Russia was under Stalin, etc.
- caf 13y agoSurely "Well, it's not as bad as Stalin" is the very epitome of damning with faint praise?
- bulatb 13y ago"Don't be so dramatic," says the frog. "The other pots are all much hotter."
- maxerickson 13y agoI think the soft line for a police state is using the police to work towards social policy goals. So, for example, when you move from pulling people over for driving dangerously to having checkpoints.
- spodek 13y agoI don't want to go too far, but according to Wikipedia's article on rape "the World Health Organization defined it in 2002 as 'physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration – even if slight – of the vulva or anus, using a penis, other body parts or an object'". Is it a mistake to use that definition here? Obviously the local law is relevant in legal proceedings and I want to respect survivors of sexual assault, but what else do we call it?
- YokoZar 13y agoIt's not a mistake, and the civil suit filing even includes rape as one of its (many) listed claims.
- chris_wot 13y agoThose doctors are screwed. I'd personally sue each and every one of them. If only to stop them from cooperating with the police ever again. Then I'd request the police and doctors be charged with assault. And then demand the doctors' licenses be revoked and the police officers' badges revoked.
- ubernostrum 13y agoQualified immunity goes a long, long way; and even beyond that, a court issued a warrant for this, which means it's got more than just the usual "in the course of their duties" cover going on.
- yapcguy 13y agoKOB News 4 have found another case - maybe it's regular practice round there? "Our investigation reveals another chapter. Another man, another minor traffic violation, another incident with Leo the K-9 and another example of the violation of a man's body. Young is taken to the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, and just like Eckert, he's subjected to medical procedures including x-rays of his stomach and an anal exam. Again, police found nothing, and again the procedures were done without consent, and in a county not covered by the search warrant. We've learned more about that drug dog, Leo, that seems to get it wrong pretty often. He might be getting it wrong because he's not even certified in New Mexico. " http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3210356.shtml http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3210356.shtml
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoThank god we live in a free country, where things like this can't happen!
- memracom 13y agoThis kind of behavior on the part of law enforcement will lead to destruction of public trust in the police. And that is a major step on the way to destruction of the American Empire because when Americans no longer trust their security forces, then nobody else in the world will trust Americans at all. The medical clinic and the doctors who performed the procedures should all sue the police officers involved personally as well as the police department since they lied and they solicited the doctors to commit crimes. This kind of rogue police behavior needs to be severely punished in a very public way to send the message that "peace officers" are there to keep the peace, not to disturb it.
- whyenot 13y agoThis reminds me of the women in Texas who had their vaginas and anuses searched after being stopped for littering. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/troopers-texas-probe-genitals-women-traffic-stops-article-1.1414668 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/troopers-texas-prob... at least one officer was charged with sexual assault.
- javajosh 13y agoRage. That is what I feel. I hope the town is bankrupted and the officers, doctors, and judge who contributed to this are all put behind bars, where, ideally, they'll get to experience what unwanted anal searching is like. The police are totally out of control in this country. They are out of control because they are untouchable. That was the lasting legacy of the Rodney King acquittals: you can do what you want if you're a cop. You can beat a black man senseless for nothing. You can beat a homeless man to death with your fists. You can pepper spray, tackle, and beat peaceful protesters dancing in a public square. You can smash people's cameras who are trying to document your abuses. You can send SWAT teams to the home of the mayor of a small town, shoot the family dog dead, track the blood all over the house, put the family on their knees for hours with guns to their heads, and then when it turns out it was a mistake, leave, laughing and saying "you're lucky we didn't arrest you." Almost certainly it will get much worse before it gets better. Armed with ever better surveillance, city police are going to get much more powerful. And power corrupts. I think we'll be hearing about a lot more of these kinds of abuses. Eventually, 400M Americans are going wake up, realize that they've had enough, and effect real, lasting change.
- hga 13y ago"That was the lasting legacy of the Rodney King acquittals: you can do what you want if you're a cop." To a propagandized society, yes, that the revolutionary truth about the initial acquittals. The bourgeois truth is that the LAPD police academy cheaped out on baton training, excluding the normal sections that would have allowed them to restrain King with a minimum of force. Given that, they had exactly three choices: shoot him like a dog, beat him into submission, or I suppose let him free to commit more crimes while intoxicated. I guarantee you the message sent by the second prosecution in an area and situation where conviction was much more likely (2 out of 3) has had a lot of very bad effects, including the police resorting to their firearms a lot more. "Eventually, 400M Americans are going wake up, realize that they've had enough, and effect real, lasting change." Perhaps all this will help you understand why we're buying guns of military utility at unprecedented rates? With the exception of last August, for around 40 months NICS tracked guns sales have been higher than those of the preceding month a year previously (source is the NSSF). Note that the starting point of this massive surge is well beyond the period of fear that Obama would take effective gun control steps and way before Newtown. It's ... amazing. The world's stocks of $150 (in today's prices) standard bolt action military surplus rifles have been exhausted, that's from more than a century's production of them. I'm not sure if we're gearing up for a civil war/general resistance to this sort of shit, the inevitable consequences of the government running out of money, or things less dire in the runup to one or both, but we're getting thoroughly prepared, which should terrify the police-judicial complex. And may well be doing so. As I and other keep saying, this will not end well.
- zmonkeyz 13y agoreddit is that way ->
- cwilson 13y agoA number of people have commented that they are not surprised by the police actions in this case, because they are likely corrupt. I'm right there with you in most cases, but I simply can't wrap my head around what kind of outcome here would have made it worth all the trouble for the police involved? After the SECOND probe (there were six total probes, two x-rays) I'd think most people would be convinced the guy wasn't hiding anything. Even if he was, we're not talking pounds of drugs here. The police involved, and anyone that went along with SIX probes and two x-rays, and still were not sure this guy was innocent, are far beyond "corrupt", they are simply insane. Corruption generally comes with some kind of substantial payoff. What could that have been in this case? I'm really baffled by this, and scared. Only truly crazy people could allow this to happen, much less support it.
- TruthElixirX 13y agoHave you ever been on the other end of an office who "knows" you have something on you? I have. I was pulled over in Dallas, TX because my tag light as "out." He made me step out of the car. When I did, I looked at my tag light. I was not out. I told him. He then changed his story to it was "too dim." (It was the factory light in the factory casing, etc. All stock.). He then asked if I was okay with a search. I told him no, so he called the drug dog. Drug dog hit on my car on the third time around it. They ripped my car apart, threw my laptop on the ground, let the dog crawl all over my interior. This entire time my car was running. They kept me there long enough to run down 3/4ths a tank of gas. After they found absolutely nothing (I don't do drugs outside of caffeine and alcohol once a month or so.) the dick head started trying to rip off my fucking interior door panels because he knew there was something there. He started with the one on the opposite side of the car that the dog hit on. The other officer talked him out of it and they let me be on my way, but then I had to spend the next half hour picking my shit up off the side of a 6 lane interstate at 10:30 PM in the fucking dark, praying I didn't leave something behind or get hit. Cops are are worse people on average than a random group of the general population. "Domestic violence is 2 to 4 times more common in police families than in the general population." [0] [0]http://www.purpleberets.org/violence_dv_extent_problem.html http://www.purpleberets.org/violence_dv_extent_problem.html
- sethbannon 13y agoIt's times like this that make me ever so thankful for a robust and free press.
- sbank 13y agoHah.
- GhotiFish 13y agoWhy so many times? Why wouldn't you just stop at the X-ray? Is there some method of hiding drugs that wouldn't be very obvious in an X-ray? Ignoring the morality entirely, did they actually gain anything from that? Was there someone who could of hid narcotics past the first 7 steps? What's so powerful about this story is it doesn't seem to make sense. I want to know why. What on earth motivated anything beyond step 1? Step 1 was bad enough!
- Zikes 13y agoEvery step is just more evidence that the people involved were riding high on a power trip, which is why they absolutely need that power removed from them.
- consonants 13y agoSadism.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoWhat on earth motivated anything beyond step 1? Pathalogical certainty of guilt. Once you have that then the only possible answer is that you simply haven't looked hard enough yet, if you give up then you are letting someone get one over on you and you know they are lying no matter what the damn machine says.
- bruceb 13y agoOne thought is after they tried the first time and didn't find anything they might have been worried they would get in trouble so at that point they might as well keeping going because now they really have to find something to justify what they did. Not defending them at all just trying to at least attempt to figure out their reasoning.
- downandout 13y agoThe scary part about this is that this wasn't just a single rogue cop. Several physicians, nurses, a judge, a radiologist, and at least one police officer - any of whom could have put a stop to it - participated in a state-sanctioned rape and found nothing wrong with it. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke
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- laichzeit0 13y agoOh, America. I don't know what else to say really. This kind of reaction defies any form of rational discourse. As an outsider I'm kind of numb to it though. America, in my mind, has gone from a "cool" place that I learned about on television (Home Alone, Mickey Mouse Club, Terminator, NASA etc.) to this giant nanny state that has MASSIVE knee-jerk reactions to anything, e.g. putting warning labels on coffee, searching peoples assholes for drugs cause they clenched their buttcheeks, making air travel a ridiculously painful experience, etc.
- maxerickson 13y agoI find it bizarre that you equate this to nanny state stuff. If true, it is simply criminal abuse of power by a small set of individuals. Nothing in the 'normal' war on drugs encourages anything like this.
- yetanotherphd 13y agoWe put people in jail for violating drug laws and it does seem to have some effect. To bad it never occurs to prosecutors that we could encourage police and doctors to obey the law using the same means. If this man was found with drugs he wouldn't have been offered better training or face a civil lawsuit. If we are willing to be tough on drug users, we should be as tough on people in authority when they break the law.
- ck2 13y agoDon't forget the part where they are making him pay for the hospital exam.
- fetbaffe 13y agoThis is the definition of a police state.
- hga 13y agoNot quite, our trial by jury system is far from being corrupted. In a real police state like e.g. Japan the police don't worry too much about how they close a case, for they know whoever they charge will get convicted.
- fetbaffe 13y agoSame in the US http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353322/dagger-heart-justice-mark-steyn http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353322/dagger-heart-ju... The defining characteristic of English law is its distribution of power between prosecutor, judge, and jury. This delicate balance has been utterly corrupted in the United States to the point where today at the federal level there is a conviction rate of over 90 percent — which would impress Mubarak and the House of Saud, if not quite, yet, Kim Jong Un. American prosecutors have an unhealthy and disreputable addiction to what I called, at the conclusion of the trial of my old boss Conrad Black six years ago, “countless counts.” In Conrad’s case, he was charged originally with 17 crimes, three of which were dropped by the opening of the trial and another halfway through, leaving 13 for the jury, nine of which they found the defendant not guilty of, bringing it down to four, one of which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional and the remaining three of which they vacated, only to have two of them reinstated by the lower appeals court. In other words, the prosecution lost 88 percent of the case, but the 12 percent they won was enough to destroy Conrad Black’s life. Multiple charges tend, through sheer weight of numbers, to favor a result in which the jury convict on some and acquit on others and then tell themselves that they’ve reached a “moderate” “compromise” as befits the reasonable persons they assuredly are. It is, of course, not reasonable. Indeed, the notion of a “compromise” between conviction and acquittal is a dagger at the heart of justice.
- hga 13y agoWell, I was talking more about state courts; at the Federal level they situation is obviously worse. E.g. see my Rodney King comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6682482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6682482 where the state court came to the correct conclusion, and the Feds took no chances the 2nd time around ... but, still, they only managed to convict 2 out of 4 defendants. I believe to say it's "utterly corrupted" goes beyond the observable facts.
- Glyptodon 13y agoJust imagine how this would be going if they'd planted some drugs. (That might even be what these police learn from this affair: sneak some narcotics in after taking the vehicle to impound.)
- pcvarmint 13y agoVolokh Conspiracy's preliminary analysis: http://www.volokh.com/2013/11/07/thoughts-eckert-v-city-deming/ http://www.volokh.com/2013/11/07/thoughts-eckert-v-city-demi...