Anal probes, enemas ordered after N.M. traffic stop, lawsuit alleges
(CBS/AP) ALBUQUERQUE - A southern New Mexico man who was pulled over for not making a complete stop was taken to two hospitals and forced to have anal probes, three enemas, two body X-rays and a colonoscopy because police thought he was hiding drugs, according to a federal lawsuit.
No drugs were found in either case, and both people are now being billed for thousands of dollars by the hospitals, according to attorneys, who say the cases raise serious questions about law enforcement practices along the border.
"It's terrifying," said Laura Schauer Ives, an attorney with the ACLU in Albuquerque.
"I think law enforcement has been emboldened, particularly when it comes to drug interdiction. It's kind of anything goes. You couple that with drug interdiction at the border and you have a recipe for serious civil liberties violations."
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of David Eckert against police and sheriff's officials in Deming and Hidalgo County, which borders Mexico, alleges that Deming police sought a search warrant for Eckert because they thought he appeared to be clenching his buttocks when he got out of his car Jan. 2. According to the lawsuit, Hildalgo County sheriff's deputies officers told the Deming police officers Eckert was known in the area for carrying drugs inside his body. Police also brought in a drug-sniffing dog, which detected something in the driver's seat.
Throughout the ordeal that ensued at the hospital as a result of the traffic stop, Eckert protested and never gave doctors consent to perform any of the medical procedures, reports KOB-TV.
The Deming police chief did not immediately respond to a call for comment Wednesday, but in their response to the lawsuit, the officers said they were lawfully carrying out their duties.
In a separate case, Schauer Ives said she is preparing to file a lawsuit against the Border Patrol on behalf of a New Mexico woman who was subjected to similar treatment after crossing from Mexico into El Paso in December. She declined to name the woman because her client "considers it a sexual assault."
The biggest difference in the cases, she said, is the Border Patrol had no search warrant when it took her client to the hospital in El Paso.
A spokesman for the Border Patrol in El Paso did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case or on its policies for conducting such searches.
In the Deming case, the lawsuit details a host of violations of Eckert's rights, including his being denied the right to make a phone call from the police station, and the fact that the search warrant that was filed to search his body was valid only in Luna County but he was taken to a different country after a doctor at the local hospital refused to do the searches, citing ethical violations.