A New Mexico man was subjected to 8 invasive and humiliating medical procedures – all for rolling through a stop sign.
On January 2, 2013, David Eckert did a little shopping at the Walmart in Deming. According to a federal lawsuit, Eckert didn’t make a complete stop at a stop sign coming out of the parking lot. He was immediately stopped by police.
Eckert was asked to step out of his vehicle, and one of the officers patted him down – without reasonable suspicion that he was armed.
One of the officers claimed that Eckert’s posture was “erect and he kept his legs together,” which led him to believe Eckert may have been hiding drugs in his anal cavity.
Eckert’s car was seized and searched and no contraband was found, but a search warrant was obtained anyway. That’s when things got really ugly.
According to the lawsuit, the search warrant included permission to search Eckert’s anal cavity. The warrant did not mention what kind of medical procedure could be used – or that a medical procedure could be used at all.
An officer took Eckert to an emergency room in Deming, but the attending physician there would not perform the search, stating it was “unethical.”
Officers contacted Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, and physicians there agreed to perform the procedure. Eckert was admitted a few hours later.
Here’s what Eckert was subjected to at the hospital, according to medical records and lawsuit details provided to KOB 4 news:
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.
Eckert never gave doctors consent to perform any of those procedures; in fact, he protested the entire time.
His attorney, Shannon Kennedy, told KOB 4 that the public needs to know about this case:
“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.
There are also major concerns about the search warrant. Kennedy says that the warrant was “overly broad and lacked probable cause.” It also was only valid in Luna County, where Deming is; not Grant County, where the Gila Regional Medical Center is located. So, 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, the warrant expired at 10 p.m. Medical records show that preparation for the colonoscopy started at 1 a.m. the following day – three hours after the warrant expired.
To add insult to injury, the Gila Regional Medical Center has billed Eckert for the procedures, and is threatening to send him to collections if he doesn’t pay.
Eckert is suing the officers and medical professionals involved in the case.
“This is like something out of a science fiction film, anal probing by government officials and public employees,” Kennedy said.
Indeed. The question is, how long are we going to continue to bend over and take it?
wow, these cops and doctors are a bunch of anal focused morons, wonder if they scooped that feces up and made a smoothie out of it.
Fucking disgraceful, sack the bloody lot of them.