Posted on 11/05/2013 5:28:49 AM PST by ican'tbelieveit
This 4 On Your Side investigation looks into the actions of police officers and doctors in Southern New Mexico. A review of medical records, police reports and a federal lawsuit show deputies with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office, police officers with the City of Deming and medical professionals at the Gila Regional Medical Center made some questionable decisions.
The incident began January 2, 2013 after David Eckert finished shopping at the Wal-Mart in Deming. According to a federal lawsuit, Eckert didn’t make a complete stop at a stop sign coming out of the parking lot and was immediately stopped by law enforcement.
Eckert’s attorney, Shannon Kennedy, said in an interview with KOB that after law enforcement asked him to step out of the vehicle, he appeared to be clenching his buttocks. Law enforcement thought that was probable cause to suspect that Eckert was hiding narcotics in his anal cavity. While officers detained Eckert, they secured a search warrant from a judge that allowed for an anal cavity search.
The lawsuit claims that Deming Police tried taking Eckert to an emergency room in Deming, but a doctor there refused to perform the anal cavity search citing it was “unethical.”
But physicians at the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City agreed to perform the procedure and a few hours later, Eckert was admitted.
What Happened
While there, Eckert was subjected to repeated and humiliating forced medical procedures. A review of Eckert’s medical records, which he released to KOB, and details in the lawsuit show the following happened:
1. Eckert’s abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.
2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
4. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
5. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
6. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.
8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert’s anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.
Throughout this ordeal, Eckert protested and never gave doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center consent to perform any of these medical procedures.
“If the officers in Hidalgo County and the City of Deming are seeking warrants for anal cavity searches based on how they’re standing and the warrant allows doctors at the Gila Hospital of Horrors to go in and do enemas and colonoscopies without consent, then anyone can be seized and that’s why the public needs to know about this,” Kennedy said.
Search Warrant Concerns
There are major concerns about the way the search warrant was carried out. Kennedy argues that the search warrant was overly broad and lacked probable cause. But beyond that, the warrant was only valid in Luna County, where Deming is located. The Gila Regional Medical Center is in Grant County. That means all of the medical procedures were performed illegally and the doctors who performed the procedures did so with no legal basis and no consent from the patient.
In addition, even if the search warrant was executed in the correct New Mexico county, the warrant expired at 10 p.m. Medical records show the prepping for the colonoscopy started at 1 a.m. the following day, three hours after the warrant expired.
“This is like something out of a science fiction film, anal probing by government officials and public employees,” Kennedy said.
No Comment
KOB reached out to the attorneys representing the defendants in the lawsuit and all declined to comment on the situation. The attorneys said it’s their personal policy not comment on pending litigation.
4 On Your Side Investigative Reporter Chris Ramirez cornered Deming Police Chief Brandon Gigante.
“As the police chief what reassurances could you give people when they come through your town that they won’t be violated or abused by your police officers?” Ramirez asked Chief Gigante.
“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.
The Lawsuit
David Eckert is suing The City of Deming and Deming Police Officers Bobby Orosco, Robert Chavez and Officer Hernandez.
Eckert is also suing Hidalgo County Hidalgo County Deputies David Arredondo, Robert Rodriguez and Patrick Green.
Eckert is also suing Deputy District Attorney Daniel Dougherty and the Gila Regional Medical Center including Robert Wilcox, M.D and Okay Odocha, M.D.
No doubt many of the cops who were there were wearing sunglasses. That’s definitely PC to assume there’s contraband in their eyes or behind in the orbits. Better probe ‘em! Several of them were also wearing undergarments. We won’t get into the ones who weren’t, but the ones who were, we’re obviously concealing something illegal in their genitals - ditto.
OTOH, it WAS Lordsburg, which is where they make movies that the cast of Deliverance think are horror movies.
Sounds like torture. These doctors worked in lockstep with the jackbooted Nazis who wanted this man tortured. They all need to spend years in prison getting probed by the inmates. Rape, assault, kidnapping, illegal imprisonment, and torture seem like obvious criminal charges that should come out of this episode of power abuse. It isn’t enough to simply sue all his attackers into abject poverty.
David Eckert is gonna be a very wealthy man..............
Twenty years in general population is about right.
Ah, yes, the "Nuremberg Defense."
He will get less money from the police than he will from the hospital and doctors that did this.
Reminds me of a jury trial I served on many years ago. A DUI case where the cop said the man's hands shook when handing over his license and registration. No breathalyzer, no fields sobriety tests... nothing more than "his hands shook, so he must have been nervous because he was drunk so we arrested him for DUI".
First time I've given a second NM Ping for a thread.
It seems the cops truly did believe that he had something up his bunghole. They kept looking, and escalating the situation, and even searching through his poop. The question is, why were they so convinced?
Ditto that!
This is ridiculous. There are no laws giving them the power to do any of this. These cops and other officials should be fired and posisbly imprisoned, the hospital and doctors should at least be threatened with losing their licenses.
Yes, and those cops should be in prison for such abuse of authority
:: The question is, why were they so convinced? ::
Seriousness of the charge, right?
Eff the evidence, we have hearsay by LEO that indicates there might be a concern (and, of course, their word is impeachable and if you say it is, you are a racist because Obamugabe is the POTUS and, well, he’s BLACK!).
C’mon Defiant, You studied the US Constitution, right?
but a doctor there refused to perform the anal cavity search citing it was “unethical.”
ALL of the doctors, ALL of the police officers, and the judge, who are collectively responsible for this outrage should be prosecuted for sexual assault, felonious assault, kidnapping, torture and anything and everything else a creative prosecutor can think of.
Theft, maybe?
surprised more of these victims do not go after these out of control cops and judges with lethality.
No he was in custody at the time or they couldn’t have been performing procedures on him without consent (not that this was righteous anyway, but that post is beyond even dispute). The bill will definitely go to the department, at whose behest the procedure was done.
The other thing that pisses me off about this is the lengths they went to when initial results were negative. Even if their PC were legit, it’s just “probable” cause for God’s sake! The lengths to which they took this, you’d think the clinched ass hunch were some sort of irrefutable proof and entitled them to go to any ends (so to speak) to obtain corroboration. If this is the kind of power you get with “probable” cause, then the bar for PC needs to be raised by several orders of magnitude.
Is that so? Well, Chief, if that IS your real name, I'd say your "policies and protocols that [you] have in place" are... ...interesting, to say the least.
“The question is, why were they so convinced?”
Were they ‘convinced’?
My money is on ‘they are sadistic bastards’.
Occam’s razor.
“This is ridiculous. There are no laws giving them the power to do any of this.”
He clenched his buttocks around a cop in a high drug trafficking area. False alarm in this case but you can’t be too careful. Damn dopers are the #1 threat to this nation.
The police should have discretion to search anything if there is even a suspicion of any evil drugs. The libtardarians with their blind “rights” are making us lose the War on Drugs. There needs to be a special exception to finally win this War.
It’s the future of our children we’re talking about and bending over sometimes is no big deal if we give our kids a perfect drug free world.
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