5 ms·

3 Enemas Later, Still No Drugs

264 points by RougeFemme 13y ago

mjhoy 13y ago
> Eckert, protesting all the while, says he asked to make a phone call but was told that he had no right to do so because he hadn’t actually been arrested. Had to read that a few times to make sure. What were his rights at that moment?
- TylerE 13y ago
  Thus the magic phrase: "Am I being detained? Am I free to leave?"
  - yetanotherphd 13y ago
    While this sounds like very useful advice in general, I wonder if uttering this magic phrase would actually have resulted in this man from being released? The facts of the case suggest that these actions were not done under the guise of a voluntary search/interview, which is what these phrases are generally designed to deal with.
- colinbartlett 13y ago
  "Am I under arrest?" "Am I being detained?" "Than am I free to go?" Many of us know what rights we have when we encounter law enforcement, but many do not. I suppose therein partially lies the author's point -- that those who aren't as well educated or might not have access to legal advice are at a disadvantage.
  - gst 13y ago
    So the let's suppose the cops answer "You're not detained. You're not free to leave.". What do you do now?
    - girvo 13y ago
      Then you're screwed, cause you're dealing with cops that don't care about the actual law and just want to nail you to the wall.
    - mbrameld 13y ago
      The standard for a detention is that a reasonable person would believe they weren't free to go. So in your hypothetical, the fact that the officer says you're not detained doesn't matter. If he says you're not free to leave then you're detained. From that point, other than identifying yourself, you should not answer any questions and ask to speak with an attorney.
      - gst 13y ago
        But that's exactly what happened: 1) He was in handcuffs, so apparently not free to go. 2) Police told him he can't contact a lawyer because he's not arrested. 3) Police forced him to undergo a medical procedure (still, without being "arrested") I'm not sure if "not answering any questions" would have helped the victim in that case.
        colinbartlett 13y ago
        I suppose that's why they paid him $1.6M.
      - jrockway 13y ago
        I'd want to call my insurance company to make sure they cover forced penetration. Nobody wants a high out-of-pocket bill for getting two involuntary enemas and a colonoscopy. Also starts the paper trail for the lawsuit.
        lingben 13y ago
        3 enemas but who's counting
    - higherpurpose 13y ago
  - falcolas 13y ago
    He, and several of the other examples, were in handcuffs when taken to these hospitals. If that's not being detained, I don't know what is.
  - yetanotherphd 13y ago
    That seems like an interpretation of the situation that requires a lot of assumptions beyond the bare facts. The police were acting well outside the law, and so I don't think knowing his rights would have helped this man.
    - clarkm 13y ago
      Which is why they awarded him $1.6 million and this is written up in the NYT.
      - yetanotherphd 13y ago
        I don't follow the logic here. The claim is that he could have somehow avoided this situation by acting differently. The fact that the actions of the police were later determined to be unlawful, isn't evidence for this claim.
      - username223 13y ago
        So that's what repeated anal rape goes for these days?
  - username223 13y ago
    > Many of us know what rights we have when we encounter law enforcement, "Law enforcement" is also trained to encourage you not to assert those rights. Most people don't deal well with being shouted at by a guy with a gun, so police are trained to get angry and shout-y right away. How long would you spend reasoning about your rights when faced with an angry guy with a gun, with no witnesses around?
- crazytony 13y ago
  Judging by his previous conviction he might have been on probation/parole which has a whole different set of rights than a truly "free" individual
  - jethro_tell 13y ago
    Even felons have to say 'yes' to anal rape if there is not a valid warrent. Parole or not, you can't just rape someone 6 or seven times.
frostmatthew 13y ago
The worse thing about reading this is that none of it surprised me (even him getting billed for it). The article didn't mention if any disciplinary action happened to the cops but I'm guessing none.
- colinbartlett 13y ago
  Even if there was disciplinary action, there was certainly not criminal prosecution. It's well documented that police who commit crimes (perhaps in this case detention, rape) are far less likely to be prosecuted.
- gst 13y ago
  I wonder if and how such a bill would be legally enforceable. He never requested any services from the hospital and he also never got into a emergency condition where the hospital was forced to safe his life. It's like if a random person cuts your hair off on the street and then charges you a barber service.
  - girvo 13y ago
    What I wanna know is, if he refused to the medical procedures, aren't the doctors committing a crime by forcing them on him against his will?
    - foobarian 13y ago
      Wondering this too. They basically raped him, it's just that there is no prosecution. Is there any way for concerned out-of-county or even out-of-state citizens to trigger prosecution at a federal level?
      - dangrossman 13y ago
        Federal prosecutors generally have no jurisdiction unless the crime involves crossing state borders, national security, a federal employee, or occurred on federal property. Raping an ordinary citizen does not violate any federal law, it's a state issue.
protomyth 13y ago
From the article: "Police are caught in a difficult balancing act" No, they are not. If they truly believe he had drugs, they arrest him, he gets representation, and they try for search warrant. The Doctor who performed this torture should have his medical license pulled as a warning to all others and all these police officers should be in jail.
- Crito 13y ago
  The doctors and nurses involved should flat out be imprisoned for rape. That's what it was. Penetration without consent, explicit or implied (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_consent#First_aid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_consent#First_aid).
- ksherlock 13y ago
  I didn't see it mentioned in this writeup, but they did have a search warrant. Sort of. 1. The warrant was only valid within the county. After the first doctor refused, the police took him to a hospital in another county. 2. The warrant had an expiration time on it. The warrant was no longer valid when the colonoscopy was performed.
  - protomyth 13y ago
    Great, they violated a search warrant - criminally - jail is still the place for them.
  - tansey 13y ago
    Should that matter? Doctors have a hippocratic oath to uphold.
    - doreo 13y ago
      This isn't ancient Greece. Of the few medical schools that use the Hippocratic oath, none of them make it mandatory.
      - 13y ago
x0054 13y ago
I think the cops should now be billed for that 1.6mill. Garnish there salary to the end of their worthless life. Why should the taxpayers be stuck with these bills. The taxpayers didn't abuse and humiliated that poor man on a fucking whim, the individual police officers did. No pension, immediate dismissal, and garnishment of wages is the least that they deserve! This case should not end because they settled, make an example of these fucks. Also, even a first year law student would be able to easily throw out any and all evidence they have obtained this way. So the entire procedure was worthless, even if they had succeeded. Makes their conduct even worse. Evil and stupid!
- lisper 13y ago
  You don't think the people who hired the officers and supervised them should bear any of the responsibility?
  - HarryHirsch 13y ago
    I don't think there's a law against criminal stupidity and keeping lax discipline. Now the cleanup, there's a problem. The usual and proven way to deal with corrupt police is to fire everyone and bring in new people from the other side of the country with no local obligations. But how do you do this in an impoverished county in New Mexico where no one wants to go?
    - lisper 13y ago
      > I don't think there's a law against criminal stupidity and keeping lax discipline. There may not be a law against criminal stupidity, but there is certainly (by definition) a law against criminal negligence (if there weren't a law against it, it wouldn't be criminal). If, for example, the officers' supervisors established a work culture that condoned framing people that could easily rise to the legal standard of criminal negligence.
  - bayesianhorse 13y ago
    Which would be the general public. Which is both bearing some of the responsibility and most of the bill.
yetanotherphd 13y ago
Inequality exacerbates this problem, but it is not the root cause. I have heard many stories of police abuse from middle class, White people. It is only the ultra-rich (or ultra-connected) that the police are afraid of.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Kenneth Lay laughed all the way to the bank!
- jeltz 13y ago
  The root cause seems to be that police are not prosecuted for crimes committed while on duty.
ojbyrne 13y ago
"Every man is innocent until proven broke."
HarryHirsch 13y ago
You ask yourself: where is the public prosecution? Where are the criminal cases against everyone involved? You also ask yourself why the NY Times only mentions the civil suit and the settlement.
- jeltz 13y ago
  That is an excellent question. What happened here is obviously criminal, so why did no prosecutor pick up the case? Are cops so much beyond the reach of the law that they even get away with this blatant crimes.
bayesianhorse 13y ago
The phrase "not arrested" suggests that the suspect almost hoped for a chance to sue the police. Hard to blame him, when the police is displaying this amount of stupidity, lack of judgement or empathy.
URSpider94 13y ago
I do wonder if there is an end run here to either the state medical board or the specialist certifying organization for the doctors. these docs pretty clearly performed medical procedures on patients without consent or a court order. doctors need to know that if they comply with illegal police orders, they run the risk of losing their license or board certification.
- cookingrobot 13y ago
  I wonder if there's a way we can work through our own doctors. Send them an email saying that it horrifies you that doctors can get away with this. Ask them if they agree and if they can raise their concern to the medical board. If there was an internal rejection of this sort of thing by doctors, maybe the medical boards would feel enabled to take action.
- neurotech1 13y ago
  The American Medical Association take stand against doctors' participation in execution by lethal injection. The "following orders" defense doesn't work either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial Generally speaking, doctors are forbidden to perform procedures without patient consent. If the patient affirmatively refuses consent, the doctor can be charged with assault and/or battery. If a patient is a threat to themselves, or others, then certain protocols apply. The doctors are most definitely not excused from liability in those cases.
jasonkolb 13y ago
This story is the only response needed when someone says "I don't care because I don't have anything to hide".
- ikusalic 13y ago
  Exactly, though depending on the subject's intelligence I also like to provide Moxie's excellent post [0]. [0]: http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/we-should-all-have-somethin...
endgovernment 13y ago
Yet another great reason to end drug prohibition. The cops and the doctors perpetrating the rape should also be held personally liable in civil and criminal court.
lkrubner 13y ago
Regarding this part: "Doctors took X-rays of Eckert’s abdomen and performed a rectal examination. No drugs were found, so doctors performed a second rectal exam, again unavailing. Doctors then gave Eckert an enema and forced him to have a bowel movement in the presence of a nurse and policeman, according to a lawsuit that Eckert filed. When no narcotics were found, a second enema was administered. Then a third." One of the many problems with allowing this sort of procedure is that it shapes who signs up to be a policeman, and who quits the police force. Consider the statistics regarding psychopathy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy "A 2008 study using the PCL:SV found that 1.2% of a US sample scored 13 or more out of 24, indicating "potential psychopathy" There is also the somewhat controversial condition known as "sadism": http://www.jaapl.org/content/34/1/61.full http://www.jaapl.org/content/34/1/61.full "Sadistic individuals have poor behavioral controls, manifested by a short temper, irritability, low frustration tolerance, and a controlling nature. From an interpersonal standpoint, they are noted to be harsh, hostile, manipulative, lacking in empathy, cold-hearted, and abrasive to those they deem to be their inferiors. Their cognitive nature is considered rigid and prone to social intolerance, and they are fascinated by weapons, war, and infamous crimes or perpetrators of atrocities." In a civil, decent society, most of these behaviors are driven underground, and treated as criminal. A civil and decent society strives to avoid situations in which criminals become society's leaders. The worst aspects of war and totalitarian regimes is that they empower psychopaths and sadists. In her book "Prison we choose to live inside" Doris Lessing makes the point that many institutions are shaped by the self-selection of those who chose to work there. She mentions the idealistic, conscientious young man who joins the police thinking that he will be able to help the public, but if he finds the work brutal and inhumane, he quits and finds some other job where he feels he can do more to help the public. And yet he is exactly the kind of man that much of the public actually wants to have as a police officer: idealistic and conscientious and authentically wanting to help people. When we allow police work to consist of repeated rectal exams of people who are not under arrest, then the good people will be driven out of the police force, and the police force will become a very attractive profession for those people whom are the most likely to abuse the power of being a police officer. The public would be wise to feel genuine terror at the thought of a police force that consists of the kinds of people who actually enjoy the kind torture described in this article.
smoyer 13y ago
Why do all these articles suppose that the upper and middle classes don't really have sympathy for the lower class who are generally subject to this sort of "crime" (at least I feel it was). Most of us are not so out-of-touch that we can't also declare that what happened to this guy was WRONG. And we're also not so self-centered that we can't feel both sympathy and empathy. Or maybe they only teach that to journalists?
- vacri 13y ago
  Because it's the middle classes pushing the tough-on-crime politicking that causes long sentences, overpopulated prisons, and paramilitarised police using abusive powers. It takes an abuse of power this strong to make them take notice, as a general demographic.
rplst8 13y ago
We live in a country that per capita incarcerates more of its citizens than any other in the world. Our society is by and large very safe. Yet there is still a drive to lock up even more people, for longer terms, for silly offences, and further, to turn more and more tort laws into criminal laws. At some point this has to stop. These stories are far more often becoming the norm, and I find it disgusting. The Constitution and our system of laws do not guarantee your absolute safety... They guarantee your freedom, and that justice will be served if you are wronged. I read these stories with a heavy heart.
ithinkso 13y ago
What really upsets me, despite all this law enforcement's abuse, that the victims were billed for those procedures. What?! Police is forcing someone, against their will, to take medical exams and then one has to pay for that?
- scoot 13y ago
  That fact seemed to be the common thread between the case, and I wondered if being billed with no ability to pay is what brought their cases to the public eye. If the state had picked up the tab, would they have got away with it? How many similar cases exist where the victim has gone away quietly, too humiliated to complain?
dreamdu5t 13y ago
I'd like to point out that YOU CAN BE LEGALLY RAPED if a cop suspects you have drugs and has probable cause (which can be anything really, from a dog barking to a previous history of drug use, to clenching your ass when being padded down).
stormqloud 13y ago
This sounds beyond outrageous to people not living in USA. It's a good thing it didn't happen to some random European tourist.
- clarkm 13y ago
  Yes it's outrageous, but why compare this to Europe? Hidalgo County is right on the border, and if this would've happened just a few miles south (in Mexico) it wouldn't be too far out of the ordinary. Some parts of the US seem to operate a lot more like our neighbor to the south than like the ones across the pond.
- hso9791 13y ago
  Similar idiocy does happen to European tourists/visitors. Google "John Kristoffer Larsgard" for an AG's narrative that makes no sense, yet made it all the way to court and a conviction. (Astroturfing on both sides - look for the facts.) For me, the US is indefinitely off my itineraries, both private and business. I've lived there for years, and I liked it, but the risk of becoming a pawn in some elected law enforcement official's scramble for reelection - or pissing off the wrong police officer - carries too much risk.
mistercow 13y ago
>an officer wrote that Eckert’s posture was “erect and he kept his legs together.” I think maybe the cop in question needs a basic anatomy lesson. He seems to think that holding one's legs together is required if one is hiding something in one's rectum. Butts do not work like that.
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  and if his legs are apart, that can be interpreted as aggression. no win situation - they were looking for an excuse to go to town on this guy...
VexXtreme 13y ago
Shocking but not overly surprising. However, I can't really imagine something like this happening in any western democracy other than the US (and maybe the UK).
- ionwake 13y ago
  are you nuts? this would never occur in the UK.
valar_m 13y ago
One solution for police misconduct that I heard recently is to require officers to purchase malpractice insurance[1]. The idea is to incentivize good behavior, as bad actors would pay higher premiums because they're a higher risk (or simply leave law enforcement altogether). That makes a lot of sense to me. The police do things like this because they rarely, if ever, are held accountable for their actions. I expect the people who have a strong personal interest in that idea never happening would counter the proposal with warnings of frightful, dire consequences. [1] https://twitter.com/ClarkHat/status/420254393444093952 https://twitter.com/ClarkHat/status/420254393444093952
- jcc80 13y ago
  I first heard someone mention something like this maybe 1-2 months ago and think it's great. The person compared it to being bonded like an electrician or plumber. The process to fire police officers in many districts is very difficult so this could be one method to get control of the situation.
  - jethro_tell 13y ago
    The other great thing about this is when you read about a cop shooting someone for no cause, usually there were warning signs like he escalated a ton of situations with other suspects. This makes a third party (that is interested in not loosing millions to a victims family) start running psych tests and algorithms against arrest and escalation records. At some point the data will get good enough that people will be un-insurable before they kill someone.
neolefty 13y ago
Our righteous indignation seems a little shrill here. The fact that he was awarded $1.6M is being glossed over -- clearly this was not, in hindsight, a reasonable procedure, and everyone recognizes it.
- valar_m 13y ago
  >The fact that he was awarded $1.6M is being glossed over It's being glossed over because it's irrelevant to the discussion. >this was not, in hindsight, a reasonable procedure In hindsight? Are you seriously implying that it was reasonable at the time? >Our righteous indignation seems a little shrill here. Interesting. What tone should be taken in a discussion condemning an act of rape in order to avoid sounding shrill?
- stephencanon 13y ago
  The monetary settlement should be just a start. Does the doctor involved still have a license to practice medicine? He shouldn't. Do the nurses and techs involved still have jobs? They should be subject to extreme disciplinary measures at the very least. Are the cops still on the force? They shouldn't be, as they are obviously unsuitable for the job. Is the judge who authorized the warrant still on the bench? No, there's plenty of room for indignation.
burner747471 13y ago
This article reminds me of an experience I had 3 years ago in Dublin, CA. I was driving home to San Jose at about 3am, after spending the evening playing live music at a bar in Dublin. I was pulled over as I was driving from the bar to I-680. The cops made me get out of my car. They took my pulse and examined my eyelids with their flashlights repeatedly. I was shivering a bit as it was cold and I was wearing a t-shirt. They accused me of being under the influence of drugs based on my quickened pulse and eyelids. They searched my car, of course finding nothing. I was handcuffed and taken to jail, where I had to spend ~12 hours until the next day when my wife picked me up. My car was towed (which I had to pay to get out of the impound yard). I was completely sober that night. In fact, I've been straight edge my whole life. It was a humiliating experience -- I had to give urine test in front of the cops once I was taken to jail. I had to get mugshots (which I assume are searchable online somewhere). That said, it's nothing compared to the humiliation the guy in the article experienced. I definitely lost all faith in police that night. As a fairly well-off software engineer, I could deal with the costs of getting my car out of the impound yard and missing work to show up in court (no charges were pressed). For someone less fortunate, it could have really screwed up their life. The fact that police can mess with people like this is unfair and unjust.
- username223 13y ago
  > which I assume are searchable online somewhere Better: mugshots.com or some-such will probably try to charge you money to remove your listings. Disruptive technologies FTW!
  - burner747471 13y ago
    Yeesh... I think about this whenever I see one of those mugshot ads on a website. My paranoid side wonders if this ad is "personalized".
deleted 13y ago
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throwit123444 13y ago
Yes, police brutality disproportionately affects the poor, but by no means are the middle class exempt. I can attest to this personally. I have never written about this before, but I am a middle-class, college-educated white person who was beaten rather mercilessly by the police for "resisting arrest". The resistance, by the way, was entirely verbal, specifically, I said: "no I don't think that's a good idea" and slowly backed away from them. No cursing, or disrespect, or any threatening motion. I was then beaten rather brutally on by thigh and buttocks with a police baton such that I was unable to sit without severe pain for almost a year, and then cuffed so tightly that I still have nerve problems from the incident, almost 10 years later. The police know very well not to beat you in your vitals (you risk dying) or your face (too bloody/visible). So they beat you viciously on your thighs/buttocks/shoulders/upper back. I lost count after a couple of blows. I then had two 200+ lb men sit on me, with one continuing to beat me with the baton. I had never physically resisted them beyond slowly backing away with hands up in a motion of surrender. I was intoxicated, and they would arguably have been well within their rights to physically detain me and cuff me (I was singing drunkenly in a public square), but my beating was entirely because I dared to contradict them, not because I pose any kind of risk. When I was half-dragged into a jail cell full of about 50 tattooed gang members, in which I was the only Caucasian, I felt much, much safer that I did with all the police officers of my own race who had just beat me senseless. Honestly. I was never threatened by any of my jail-mates, and at least two expressed concern about my condition (I was moaning as softly as I could). When I asked why the police officers why they had beaten me in the police car, they told me I was resisting. However, no resisting charge was ever filed -- I was only charged with misdemeanor public intoxication, to which I pled no contest. This was all witnessed in public so I'm sure they realized they would have a hard time making it stick if I decided to fight the charges. And to be sure, were I black and/or poor looking, things might have been much worse. And to be clear -- the pain I suffered compares nothing to the rapes suffered by the victims of this report. Before that point, I viewed the police as kind of like the fire department, or a similar public safety organization, not as brutal thugs. I've since become very interested in the matter and learned how wrong I was. I do recognize that a minority of police officers truly do care about their community, and not about power and adrenaline, but they're sadly decreasing in number because they don't fit in most modern police departments (and I'm also sure that there are certain police departments that are run well from the top that defy this stereotype). I've had the opportunity to observe this all up close through my involvement with another community organization that sometimes works alongside the local police department. I've heard up close how police talk to one another, and how they view the public. But don't kid yourself. We live in a police state whose powers are growing by the year, spied on by the federal police/government and beaten down by the local police whenever we protest our treatment. The lower classes have traditionally been the primary victims, but as class disparity increases, and power centralization continues, the middle class will find itself a victim of police violence more and more frequently, for causes even more egregious than what I just described.
jcampbell1 13y ago
I am so glad this case is getting wide spread attention. There is no reason hospitals should be doing rectal exams or X-rays for the benefit of the local police department as a favor. Now that there has been a massive settlement, I am sure every hospital administrator and lawyer has been advising the ER to not do this shit. Frankly, it was the doctors and nurses that did wrong here. As dumb as it is, the misguided law and policy suggests police should aggressively pursue drug crimes. I am quite sure the settlement is largely being paid by the hospital/doctors.
- doreo 13y ago
  Actually none of it is being paid by the hospital and doctors, this settlement was with the county and city. According to another source "Eckert still has pending suits against a deputy district attorney who signed off on the intrusive search warrant, the doctors who performed the search and the Gila Regional Medical Center, the facility that hosted the exams." http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/n-m-man-settles-1-6-million-anally-probed-8-times-routine-traffic-stop-article-1.1582589 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/n-m-man-settles-1-6...
csense 13y ago
The point that Ken White of the Popehat blog said it best [1]: "This case sickened me. But I can't say that it surprised me. The only thing out of it that would surprise me is if any of the individual police officers or sheriff's deputies faced any genuine significant consequences arising from it." In other words, the victim gets a $1.6 million settlement comes out of the pockets of the taxpayers. There are zero personal consequences to the individual police officers actually responsible for what occurred in this case. [1] http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/16/update-the-quantum-of-recovery-for-rape-and-torture-by-police-in-new-mexico-is-1-6-million/ http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/16/update-the-quantum-of-reco...
lhgaghl 13y ago
> But the authorities, hospital and doctors all refused to comment, and, a few days ago, the city and county settled the lawsuit by paying Eckert $1.6 million. Holy fuck people are stupid. $1.6 million is not nearly enough. I would be smashing up the cops' shit if they did this to me.
nate_meurer 13y ago
The NY Times fails to mention that only the lawsuit against the city was settled. There are still active lawsuits against Gila Regional Medical Center and the doctors, and against the district attorney. The names of the perpetrators are: * Dr. Robert Wilcox * Dr. Okay H. Odocha * Deputy district attorney Daniel Dougherty The officers involved were Deming police officers Bobby Orosco, Robert Chavez, FNU (first name unknown) Hernandez; and Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies David Arredondo, Robert Rodriguez, Patrick Green. In my opinion, doctors Robert Wilcox and Okay H. Odocha are rapists. Wilcox and Odocha sexually violated this man forcibly and repeatedly for over ten hours. This is rape, and they should be charged with rape. In my opinion, the police officers and deputy district attorney Daniel Dougherty are accessories to rape, at the very least. You can see the rapists (again, my opinion) here: http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/O/Okay-H-Odocha-M-D-.aspx http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/O/Okay-H-Odocha-M-D-.as... http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/W/Robert-M-Wilcox-M-D-.aspx http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/W/Robert-M-Wilcox-M-D-.... The list of defendants was copied directly from here: http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_24461411/lordsburg-n-m-mans-federal-lawsuit-claims-police http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_24461411/lordsb...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- amurmann 13y ago
  Thank you for calling out actual people! That seems to happen less and less. You always only hear company names these days.
- neurotech1 13y ago
  Didn't a trial already set a presidence for the "only following orders" defense for doctors? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial
lhgaghl 13y ago
Heh. Just watched Beavis and Butt-Head Do America recently. "The stolen biological weapon attracts the attention of the ATF, headed by Agent Flemming who orders a body cavity search on everyone he encounters" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_Butt-Head_Do_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_Butt-Head_Do_Americ...
WaterSponge 13y ago
The sooner all cops shifts are "GoPro'd" for lack of a real product the better. Tech has reached a point where we can archive a shifts worth of video for atleast 6 months.
c7b0rg 13y ago
Sadistic police brutality is a worldwide phenomenon, but the hospital billing the victim? On the same level of psychopathic behaviour if you ask me. Would the billing even be considered outside the US?
kyberias 13y ago
This is slightly interesting but I wonder what is the relevance to Hacker News?
eCa 13y ago
I recently watched a lecture by Philip Zimbardo (of Stanford prison experiment fame) about systems that creates such situations [1]. His example was the Abu Graib. It's quite long, but there is also a shorter Ted talk on the same subject. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpsVlY3QQc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpsVlY3QQc
tn13 13y ago
I am little surprised that there was merely a financial settlement. This is not just an invasion of Mr Eckert's privacy but a matter of public concern. The law enforcement officials and doctors should have been fired too, well not just by fired but criminally booked as well. I am surprised this has not happened. On a larger note, imagine that government tries to build a military base on a mountain behind your house. They use explosives to break bid rocks. One rock flies off and falls in your backyard killing your dog. Government pays you $1m as compensation. Does the matter end there ? Most certainly not. Instead government's negligence is a public concern. I think your neighbors should be allowed to demand that government disclose what security measures they have put in place to ensure that more rocks don't fly in air killing others. I think in the above mentioned case it must be absolutely necessary that the cops and doctors should be booked and heavily penalized.
hudibras 13y ago
For everybody wondering about the lack of criminal charges, I'll bet a Coke that Nicholas Kristof writes a follow-up column within a month about that topic. He's got himself a hot-button subject and he knows it.
smoorman1024 13y ago
I wonder if someone could comment on the validity of the contract between the hospital and the victim of the enemas. For a contract to be valid both parties need consideration. Since the victim didn't consent to the enema or the other procedures how did he receive any consideration. I would argue that it's impossible to enforce this contract.

264 points by RougeFemme 13y ago

mjhoy 13y ago

> Eckert, protesting all the while, says he asked to make a phone call but was told that he had no right to do so because he hadn’t actually been arrested. Had to read that a few times to make sure. What were his rights at that moment?

TylerE 13y ago
Thus the magic phrase: "Am I being detained? Am I free to leave?"
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  While this sounds like very useful advice in general, I wonder if uttering this magic phrase would actually have resulted in this man from being released? The facts of the case suggest that these actions were not done under the guise of a voluntary search/interview, which is what these phrases are generally designed to deal with.
colinbartlett 13y ago
"Am I under arrest?" "Am I being detained?" "Than am I free to go?" Many of us know what rights we have when we encounter law enforcement, but many do not. I suppose therein partially lies the author's point -- that those who aren't as well educated or might not have access to legal advice are at a disadvantage.
- gst 13y ago
  So the let's suppose the cops answer "You're not detained. You're not free to leave.". What do you do now?
  - girvo 13y ago
    Then you're screwed, cause you're dealing with cops that don't care about the actual law and just want to nail you to the wall.
  - mbrameld 13y ago
    The standard for a detention is that a reasonable person would believe they weren't free to go. So in your hypothetical, the fact that the officer says you're not detained doesn't matter. If he says you're not free to leave then you're detained. From that point, other than identifying yourself, you should not answer any questions and ask to speak with an attorney.
    - gst 13y ago
      But that's exactly what happened: 1) He was in handcuffs, so apparently not free to go. 2) Police told him he can't contact a lawyer because he's not arrested. 3) Police forced him to undergo a medical procedure (still, without being "arrested") I'm not sure if "not answering any questions" would have helped the victim in that case.
      - colinbartlett 13y ago
        I suppose that's why they paid him $1.6M.
    - jrockway 13y ago
      I'd want to call my insurance company to make sure they cover forced penetration. Nobody wants a high out-of-pocket bill for getting two involuntary enemas and a colonoscopy. Also starts the paper trail for the lawsuit.
      - lingben 13y ago
        3 enemas but who's counting
  - higherpurpose 13y ago
- falcolas 13y ago
  He, and several of the other examples, were in handcuffs when taken to these hospitals. If that's not being detained, I don't know what is.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  That seems like an interpretation of the situation that requires a lot of assumptions beyond the bare facts. The police were acting well outside the law, and so I don't think knowing his rights would have helped this man.
  - clarkm 13y ago
    Which is why they awarded him $1.6 million and this is written up in the NYT.
    - yetanotherphd 13y ago
      I don't follow the logic here. The claim is that he could have somehow avoided this situation by acting differently. The fact that the actions of the police were later determined to be unlawful, isn't evidence for this claim.
    - username223 13y ago
      So that's what repeated anal rape goes for these days?
- username223 13y ago
  > Many of us know what rights we have when we encounter law enforcement, "Law enforcement" is also trained to encourage you not to assert those rights. Most people don't deal well with being shouted at by a guy with a gun, so police are trained to get angry and shout-y right away. How long would you spend reasoning about your rights when faced with an angry guy with a gun, with no witnesses around?
crazytony 13y ago
Judging by his previous conviction he might have been on probation/parole which has a whole different set of rights than a truly "free" individual
- jethro_tell 13y ago
  Even felons have to say 'yes' to anal rape if there is not a valid warrent. Parole or not, you can't just rape someone 6 or seven times.

frostmatthew 13y ago

The worse thing about reading this is that none of it surprised me (even him getting billed for it). The article didn't mention if any disciplinary action happened to the cops but I'm guessing none.

colinbartlett 13y ago
Even if there was disciplinary action, there was certainly not criminal prosecution. It's well documented that police who commit crimes (perhaps in this case detention, rape) are far less likely to be prosecuted.
gst 13y ago
I wonder if and how such a bill would be legally enforceable. He never requested any services from the hospital and he also never got into a emergency condition where the hospital was forced to safe his life. It's like if a random person cuts your hair off on the street and then charges you a barber service.
- girvo 13y ago
  What I wanna know is, if he refused to the medical procedures, aren't the doctors committing a crime by forcing them on him against his will?
  - foobarian 13y ago
    Wondering this too. They basically raped him, it's just that there is no prosecution. Is there any way for concerned out-of-county or even out-of-state citizens to trigger prosecution at a federal level?
    - dangrossman 13y ago
      Federal prosecutors generally have no jurisdiction unless the crime involves crossing state borders, national security, a federal employee, or occurred on federal property. Raping an ordinary citizen does not violate any federal law, it's a state issue.

protomyth 13y ago

From the article: "Police are caught in a difficult balancing act" No, they are not. If they truly believe he had drugs, they arrest him, he gets representation, and they try for search warrant. The Doctor who performed this torture should have his medical license pulled as a warning to all others and all these police officers should be in jail.

Crito 13y ago
The doctors and nurses involved should flat out be imprisoned for rape. That's what it was. Penetration without consent, explicit or implied (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_consent#First_aid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_consent#First_aid).
ksherlock 13y ago
I didn't see it mentioned in this writeup, but they did have a search warrant. Sort of. 1. The warrant was only valid within the county. After the first doctor refused, the police took him to a hospital in another county. 2. The warrant had an expiration time on it. The warrant was no longer valid when the colonoscopy was performed.
- protomyth 13y ago
  Great, they violated a search warrant - criminally - jail is still the place for them.
- tansey 13y ago
  Should that matter? Doctors have a hippocratic oath to uphold.
  - doreo 13y ago
    This isn't ancient Greece. Of the few medical schools that use the Hippocratic oath, none of them make it mandatory.
    - 13y ago

x0054 13y ago

I think the cops should now be billed for that 1.6mill. Garnish there salary to the end of their worthless life. Why should the taxpayers be stuck with these bills. The taxpayers didn't abuse and humiliated that poor man on a fucking whim, the individual police officers did. No pension, immediate dismissal, and garnishment of wages is the least that they deserve! This case should not end because they settled, make an example of these fucks. Also, even a first year law student would be able to easily throw out any and all evidence they have obtained this way. So the entire procedure was worthless, even if they had succeeded. Makes their conduct even worse. Evil and stupid!

lisper 13y ago
You don't think the people who hired the officers and supervised them should bear any of the responsibility?
- HarryHirsch 13y ago
  I don't think there's a law against criminal stupidity and keeping lax discipline. Now the cleanup, there's a problem. The usual and proven way to deal with corrupt police is to fire everyone and bring in new people from the other side of the country with no local obligations. But how do you do this in an impoverished county in New Mexico where no one wants to go?
  - lisper 13y ago
    > I don't think there's a law against criminal stupidity and keeping lax discipline. There may not be a law against criminal stupidity, but there is certainly (by definition) a law against criminal negligence (if there weren't a law against it, it wouldn't be criminal). If, for example, the officers' supervisors established a work culture that condoned framing people that could easily rise to the legal standard of criminal negligence.
- bayesianhorse 13y ago
  Which would be the general public. Which is both bearing some of the responsibility and most of the bill.

yetanotherphd 13y ago

Inequality exacerbates this problem, but it is not the root cause. I have heard many stories of police abuse from middle class, White people. It is only the ultra-rich (or ultra-connected) that the police are afraid of.

alexeisadeski3 13y ago
Kenneth Lay laughed all the way to the bank!
jeltz 13y ago
The root cause seems to be that police are not prosecuted for crimes committed while on duty.

ojbyrne 13y ago

"Every man is innocent until proven broke."

HarryHirsch 13y ago

You ask yourself: where is the public prosecution? Where are the criminal cases against everyone involved? You also ask yourself why the NY Times only mentions the civil suit and the settlement.

jeltz 13y ago
That is an excellent question. What happened here is obviously criminal, so why did no prosecutor pick up the case? Are cops so much beyond the reach of the law that they even get away with this blatant crimes.

bayesianhorse 13y ago

The phrase "not arrested" suggests that the suspect almost hoped for a chance to sue the police. Hard to blame him, when the police is displaying this amount of stupidity, lack of judgement or empathy.

URSpider94 13y ago

I do wonder if there is an end run here to either the state medical board or the specialist certifying organization for the doctors. these docs pretty clearly performed medical procedures on patients without consent or a court order. doctors need to know that if they comply with illegal police orders, they run the risk of losing their license or board certification.

cookingrobot 13y ago
I wonder if there's a way we can work through our own doctors. Send them an email saying that it horrifies you that doctors can get away with this. Ask them if they agree and if they can raise their concern to the medical board. If there was an internal rejection of this sort of thing by doctors, maybe the medical boards would feel enabled to take action.
neurotech1 13y ago
The American Medical Association take stand against doctors' participation in execution by lethal injection. The "following orders" defense doesn't work either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial Generally speaking, doctors are forbidden to perform procedures without patient consent. If the patient affirmatively refuses consent, the doctor can be charged with assault and/or battery. If a patient is a threat to themselves, or others, then certain protocols apply. The doctors are most definitely not excused from liability in those cases.

jasonkolb 13y ago

This story is the only response needed when someone says "I don't care because I don't have anything to hide".

ikusalic 13y ago
Exactly, though depending on the subject's intelligence I also like to provide Moxie's excellent post [0]. [0]: http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/we-should-all-have-somethin...

endgovernment 13y ago

Yet another great reason to end drug prohibition. The cops and the doctors perpetrating the rape should also be held personally liable in civil and criminal court.

lkrubner 13y ago

Regarding this part: "Doctors took X-rays of Eckert’s abdomen and performed a rectal examination. No drugs were found, so doctors performed a second rectal exam, again unavailing. Doctors then gave Eckert an enema and forced him to have a bowel movement in the presence of a nurse and policeman, according to a lawsuit that Eckert filed. When no narcotics were found, a second enema was administered. Then a third." One of the many problems with allowing this sort of procedure is that it shapes who signs up to be a policeman, and who quits the police force. Consider the statistics regarding psychopathy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy "A 2008 study using the PCL:SV found that 1.2% of a US sample scored 13 or more out of 24, indicating "potential psychopathy" There is also the somewhat controversial condition known as "sadism": http://www.jaapl.org/content/34/1/61.full http://www.jaapl.org/content/34/1/61.full "Sadistic individuals have poor behavioral controls, manifested by a short temper, irritability, low frustration tolerance, and a controlling nature. From an interpersonal standpoint, they are noted to be harsh, hostile, manipulative, lacking in empathy, cold-hearted, and abrasive to those they deem to be their inferiors. Their cognitive nature is considered rigid and prone to social intolerance, and they are fascinated by weapons, war, and infamous crimes or perpetrators of atrocities." In a civil, decent society, most of these behaviors are driven underground, and treated as criminal. A civil and decent society strives to avoid situations in which criminals become society's leaders. The worst aspects of war and totalitarian regimes is that they empower psychopaths and sadists. In her book "Prison we choose to live inside" Doris Lessing makes the point that many institutions are shaped by the self-selection of those who chose to work there. She mentions the idealistic, conscientious young man who joins the police thinking that he will be able to help the public, but if he finds the work brutal and inhumane, he quits and finds some other job where he feels he can do more to help the public. And yet he is exactly the kind of man that much of the public actually wants to have as a police officer: idealistic and conscientious and authentically wanting to help people. When we allow police work to consist of repeated rectal exams of people who are not under arrest, then the good people will be driven out of the police force, and the police force will become a very attractive profession for those people whom are the most likely to abuse the power of being a police officer. The public would be wise to feel genuine terror at the thought of a police force that consists of the kinds of people who actually enjoy the kind torture described in this article.

smoyer 13y ago

Why do all these articles suppose that the upper and middle classes don't really have sympathy for the lower class who are generally subject to this sort of "crime" (at least I feel it was). Most of us are not so out-of-touch that we can't also declare that what happened to this guy was WRONG. And we're also not so self-centered that we can't feel both sympathy and empathy. Or maybe they only teach that to journalists?

vacri 13y ago
Because it's the middle classes pushing the tough-on-crime politicking that causes long sentences, overpopulated prisons, and paramilitarised police using abusive powers. It takes an abuse of power this strong to make them take notice, as a general demographic.

rplst8 13y ago

We live in a country that per capita incarcerates more of its citizens than any other in the world. Our society is by and large very safe. Yet there is still a drive to lock up even more people, for longer terms, for silly offences, and further, to turn more and more tort laws into criminal laws. At some point this has to stop. These stories are far more often becoming the norm, and I find it disgusting. The Constitution and our system of laws do not guarantee your absolute safety... They guarantee your freedom, and that justice will be served if you are wronged. I read these stories with a heavy heart.

ithinkso 13y ago

What really upsets me, despite all this law enforcement's abuse, that the victims were billed for those procedures. What?! Police is forcing someone, against their will, to take medical exams and then one has to pay for that?

scoot 13y ago
That fact seemed to be the common thread between the case, and I wondered if being billed with no ability to pay is what brought their cases to the public eye. If the state had picked up the tab, would they have got away with it? How many similar cases exist where the victim has gone away quietly, too humiliated to complain?

dreamdu5t 13y ago

I'd like to point out that YOU CAN BE LEGALLY RAPED if a cop suspects you have drugs and has probable cause (which can be anything really, from a dog barking to a previous history of drug use, to clenching your ass when being padded down).

stormqloud 13y ago

This sounds beyond outrageous to people not living in USA. It's a good thing it didn't happen to some random European tourist.

clarkm 13y ago
Yes it's outrageous, but why compare this to Europe? Hidalgo County is right on the border, and if this would've happened just a few miles south (in Mexico) it wouldn't be too far out of the ordinary. Some parts of the US seem to operate a lot more like our neighbor to the south than like the ones across the pond.
hso9791 13y ago
Similar idiocy does happen to European tourists/visitors. Google "John Kristoffer Larsgard" for an AG's narrative that makes no sense, yet made it all the way to court and a conviction. (Astroturfing on both sides - look for the facts.) For me, the US is indefinitely off my itineraries, both private and business. I've lived there for years, and I liked it, but the risk of becoming a pawn in some elected law enforcement official's scramble for reelection - or pissing off the wrong police officer - carries too much risk.

mistercow 13y ago

>an officer wrote that Eckert’s posture was “erect and he kept his legs together.” I think maybe the cop in question needs a basic anatomy lesson. He seems to think that holding one's legs together is required if one is hiding something in one's rectum. Butts do not work like that.

mgkimsal 13y ago
and if his legs are apart, that can be interpreted as aggression. no win situation - they were looking for an excuse to go to town on this guy...

VexXtreme 13y ago

Shocking but not overly surprising. However, I can't really imagine something like this happening in any western democracy other than the US (and maybe the UK).

ionwake 13y ago
are you nuts? this would never occur in the UK.

valar_m 13y ago

One solution for police misconduct that I heard recently is to require officers to purchase malpractice insurance[1]. The idea is to incentivize good behavior, as bad actors would pay higher premiums because they're a higher risk (or simply leave law enforcement altogether). That makes a lot of sense to me. The police do things like this because they rarely, if ever, are held accountable for their actions. I expect the people who have a strong personal interest in that idea never happening would counter the proposal with warnings of frightful, dire consequences. [1] https://twitter.com/ClarkHat/status/420254393444093952 https://twitter.com/ClarkHat/status/420254393444093952

jcc80 13y ago
I first heard someone mention something like this maybe 1-2 months ago and think it's great. The person compared it to being bonded like an electrician or plumber. The process to fire police officers in many districts is very difficult so this could be one method to get control of the situation.
- jethro_tell 13y ago
  The other great thing about this is when you read about a cop shooting someone for no cause, usually there were warning signs like he escalated a ton of situations with other suspects. This makes a third party (that is interested in not loosing millions to a victims family) start running psych tests and algorithms against arrest and escalation records. At some point the data will get good enough that people will be un-insurable before they kill someone.

neolefty 13y ago

Our righteous indignation seems a little shrill here. The fact that he was awarded $1.6M is being glossed over -- clearly this was not, in hindsight, a reasonable procedure, and everyone recognizes it.

valar_m 13y ago
>The fact that he was awarded $1.6M is being glossed over It's being glossed over because it's irrelevant to the discussion. >this was not, in hindsight, a reasonable procedure In hindsight? Are you seriously implying that it was reasonable at the time? >Our righteous indignation seems a little shrill here. Interesting. What tone should be taken in a discussion condemning an act of rape in order to avoid sounding shrill?
stephencanon 13y ago
The monetary settlement should be just a start. Does the doctor involved still have a license to practice medicine? He shouldn't. Do the nurses and techs involved still have jobs? They should be subject to extreme disciplinary measures at the very least. Are the cops still on the force? They shouldn't be, as they are obviously unsuitable for the job. Is the judge who authorized the warrant still on the bench? No, there's plenty of room for indignation.

burner747471 13y ago

This article reminds me of an experience I had 3 years ago in Dublin, CA. I was driving home to San Jose at about 3am, after spending the evening playing live music at a bar in Dublin. I was pulled over as I was driving from the bar to I-680. The cops made me get out of my car. They took my pulse and examined my eyelids with their flashlights repeatedly. I was shivering a bit as it was cold and I was wearing a t-shirt. They accused me of being under the influence of drugs based on my quickened pulse and eyelids. They searched my car, of course finding nothing. I was handcuffed and taken to jail, where I had to spend ~12 hours until the next day when my wife picked me up. My car was towed (which I had to pay to get out of the impound yard). I was completely sober that night. In fact, I've been straight edge my whole life. It was a humiliating experience -- I had to give urine test in front of the cops once I was taken to jail. I had to get mugshots (which I assume are searchable online somewhere). That said, it's nothing compared to the humiliation the guy in the article experienced. I definitely lost all faith in police that night. As a fairly well-off software engineer, I could deal with the costs of getting my car out of the impound yard and missing work to show up in court (no charges were pressed). For someone less fortunate, it could have really screwed up their life. The fact that police can mess with people like this is unfair and unjust.

username223 13y ago
> which I assume are searchable online somewhere Better: mugshots.com or some-such will probably try to charge you money to remove your listings. Disruptive technologies FTW!
- burner747471 13y ago
  Yeesh... I think about this whenever I see one of those mugshot ads on a website. My paranoid side wonders if this ad is "personalized".

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throwit123444 13y ago

Yes, police brutality disproportionately affects the poor, but by no means are the middle class exempt. I can attest to this personally. I have never written about this before, but I am a middle-class, college-educated white person who was beaten rather mercilessly by the police for "resisting arrest". The resistance, by the way, was entirely verbal, specifically, I said: "no I don't think that's a good idea" and slowly backed away from them. No cursing, or disrespect, or any threatening motion. I was then beaten rather brutally on by thigh and buttocks with a police baton such that I was unable to sit without severe pain for almost a year, and then cuffed so tightly that I still have nerve problems from the incident, almost 10 years later. The police know very well not to beat you in your vitals (you risk dying) or your face (too bloody/visible). So they beat you viciously on your thighs/buttocks/shoulders/upper back. I lost count after a couple of blows. I then had two 200+ lb men sit on me, with one continuing to beat me with the baton. I had never physically resisted them beyond slowly backing away with hands up in a motion of surrender. I was intoxicated, and they would arguably have been well within their rights to physically detain me and cuff me (I was singing drunkenly in a public square), but my beating was entirely because I dared to contradict them, not because I pose any kind of risk. When I was half-dragged into a jail cell full of about 50 tattooed gang members, in which I was the only Caucasian, I felt much, much safer that I did with all the police officers of my own race who had just beat me senseless. Honestly. I was never threatened by any of my jail-mates, and at least two expressed concern about my condition (I was moaning as softly as I could). When I asked why the police officers why they had beaten me in the police car, they told me I was resisting. However, no resisting charge was ever filed -- I was only charged with misdemeanor public intoxication, to which I pled no contest. This was all witnessed in public so I'm sure they realized they would have a hard time making it stick if I decided to fight the charges. And to be sure, were I black and/or poor looking, things might have been much worse. And to be clear -- the pain I suffered compares nothing to the rapes suffered by the victims of this report. Before that point, I viewed the police as kind of like the fire department, or a similar public safety organization, not as brutal thugs. I've since become very interested in the matter and learned how wrong I was. I do recognize that a minority of police officers truly do care about their community, and not about power and adrenaline, but they're sadly decreasing in number because they don't fit in most modern police departments (and I'm also sure that there are certain police departments that are run well from the top that defy this stereotype). I've had the opportunity to observe this all up close through my involvement with another community organization that sometimes works alongside the local police department. I've heard up close how police talk to one another, and how they view the public. But don't kid yourself. We live in a police state whose powers are growing by the year, spied on by the federal police/government and beaten down by the local police whenever we protest our treatment. The lower classes have traditionally been the primary victims, but as class disparity increases, and power centralization continues, the middle class will find itself a victim of police violence more and more frequently, for causes even more egregious than what I just described.

jcampbell1 13y ago

I am so glad this case is getting wide spread attention. There is no reason hospitals should be doing rectal exams or X-rays for the benefit of the local police department as a favor. Now that there has been a massive settlement, I am sure every hospital administrator and lawyer has been advising the ER to not do this shit. Frankly, it was the doctors and nurses that did wrong here. As dumb as it is, the misguided law and policy suggests police should aggressively pursue drug crimes. I am quite sure the settlement is largely being paid by the hospital/doctors.

doreo 13y ago
Actually none of it is being paid by the hospital and doctors, this settlement was with the county and city. According to another source "Eckert still has pending suits against a deputy district attorney who signed off on the intrusive search warrant, the doctors who performed the search and the Gila Regional Medical Center, the facility that hosted the exams." http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/n-m-man-settles-1-6-million-anally-probed-8-times-routine-traffic-stop-article-1.1582589 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/n-m-man-settles-1-6...

csense 13y ago

The point that Ken White of the Popehat blog said it best [1]: "This case sickened me. But I can't say that it surprised me. The only thing out of it that would surprise me is if any of the individual police officers or sheriff's deputies faced any genuine significant consequences arising from it." In other words, the victim gets a $1.6 million settlement comes out of the pockets of the taxpayers. There are zero personal consequences to the individual police officers actually responsible for what occurred in this case. [1] http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/16/update-the-quantum-of-recovery-for-rape-and-torture-by-police-in-new-mexico-is-1-6-million/ http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/16/update-the-quantum-of-reco...

lhgaghl 13y ago

> But the authorities, hospital and doctors all refused to comment, and, a few days ago, the city and county settled the lawsuit by paying Eckert $1.6 million. Holy fuck people are stupid. $1.6 million is not nearly enough. I would be smashing up the cops' shit if they did this to me.

nate_meurer 13y ago

The NY Times fails to mention that only the lawsuit against the city was settled. There are still active lawsuits against Gila Regional Medical Center and the doctors, and against the district attorney. The names of the perpetrators are: * Dr. Robert Wilcox * Dr. Okay H. Odocha * Deputy district attorney Daniel Dougherty The officers involved were Deming police officers Bobby Orosco, Robert Chavez, FNU (first name unknown) Hernandez; and Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies David Arredondo, Robert Rodriguez, Patrick Green. In my opinion, doctors Robert Wilcox and Okay H. Odocha are rapists. Wilcox and Odocha sexually violated this man forcibly and repeatedly for over ten hours. This is rape, and they should be charged with rape. In my opinion, the police officers and deputy district attorney Daniel Dougherty are accessories to rape, at the very least. You can see the rapists (again, my opinion) here: http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/O/Okay-H-Odocha-M-D-.aspx http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/O/Okay-H-Odocha-M-D-.as... http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/W/Robert-M-Wilcox-M-D-.aspx http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/W/Robert-M-Wilcox-M-D-.... The list of defendants was copied directly from here: http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_24461411/lordsburg-n-m-mans-federal-lawsuit-claims-police http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_24461411/lordsb...

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amurmann 13y ago
Thank you for calling out actual people! That seems to happen less and less. You always only hear company names these days.
neurotech1 13y ago
Didn't a trial already set a presidence for the "only following orders" defense for doctors? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial

lhgaghl 13y ago

Heh. Just watched Beavis and Butt-Head Do America recently. "The stolen biological weapon attracts the attention of the ATF, headed by Agent Flemming who orders a body cavity search on everyone he encounters" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_Butt-Head_Do_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_Butt-Head_Do_Americ...

WaterSponge 13y ago

The sooner all cops shifts are "GoPro'd" for lack of a real product the better. Tech has reached a point where we can archive a shifts worth of video for atleast 6 months.

c7b0rg 13y ago

Sadistic police brutality is a worldwide phenomenon, but the hospital billing the victim? On the same level of psychopathic behaviour if you ask me. Would the billing even be considered outside the US?

kyberias 13y ago

This is slightly interesting but I wonder what is the relevance to Hacker News?

eCa 13y ago

I recently watched a lecture by Philip Zimbardo (of Stanford prison experiment fame) about systems that creates such situations [1]. His example was the Abu Graib. It's quite long, but there is also a shorter Ted talk on the same subject. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpsVlY3QQc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpsVlY3QQc

tn13 13y ago

I am little surprised that there was merely a financial settlement. This is not just an invasion of Mr Eckert's privacy but a matter of public concern. The law enforcement officials and doctors should have been fired too, well not just by fired but criminally booked as well. I am surprised this has not happened. On a larger note, imagine that government tries to build a military base on a mountain behind your house. They use explosives to break bid rocks. One rock flies off and falls in your backyard killing your dog. Government pays you $1m as compensation. Does the matter end there ? Most certainly not. Instead government's negligence is a public concern. I think your neighbors should be allowed to demand that government disclose what security measures they have put in place to ensure that more rocks don't fly in air killing others. I think in the above mentioned case it must be absolutely necessary that the cops and doctors should be booked and heavily penalized.

hudibras 13y ago

For everybody wondering about the lack of criminal charges, I'll bet a Coke that Nicholas Kristof writes a follow-up column within a month about that topic. He's got himself a hot-button subject and he knows it.

smoorman1024 13y ago

I wonder if someone could comment on the validity of the contract between the hospital and the victim of the enemas. For a contract to be valid both parties need consideration. Since the victim didn't consent to the enema or the other procedures how did he receive any consideration. I would argue that it's impossible to enforce this contract.