{"id":10462,"date":"2014-01-20T09:35:29","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T17:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=10462"},"modified":"2014-01-20T00:55:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-20T08:55:21","slug":"16-million-settlement-for-outrageously-intrusive-drug-search-by-deming-nm-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=10462","title":{"rendered":"$1.6 Million Settlement for Outrageously Intrusive Drug Search by Deming, NM Police"},"content":{"rendered":"

The small City of Deming, New Mexico (2010 pop. 14,855<\/a>) has agreed to pay $1.6 million<\/a> to a man who had been the victim of what reporters at KOB Eyewitness News 4 in Albuquerque described as “a humiliating violation of [his] body by police and doctors.”<\/p>\n

Last November, we covered<\/a> how, what, at most, was a routine traffic stop for an alleged failure to yield upon exiting a Wal-Mart parking lot, turned into an indescribably invasive, fourteen-hour ordeal for the man who was pulled over…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Based upon nothing more than what proved to be an unfounded suspicion that 63-year old Dennis Eckert was concealing narcotics — a suspicion that allegedly arose because, according to police, Eckert appeared to clench his buttocks while obeying a command to exit his car — Deming police officers obtained a warrant for an anal cavity search, transported Eckert to the Gila County Regional Medical Center, and compelled him to undergo multiple medical procedures without his consent.<\/p>\n

After an x-ray failed to reveal any narcotics, Eckert, on two occasions, was subjected to rectal probes by a doctor’s finger. This was followed by three enemas in which Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police and to watch while doctors searched his stools. Following a second x-ray, Eckert was compelled to undergo surgery, to wit, a colonoscopy in which a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert’s anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were ever found.<\/p>\n

The hospital later billed Eckert $4,539 for the procedures he had never authorized it to perform.<\/p>\n

Eckert then filed a civil rights complaint<\/a> in a U.S. District Court. That suit has now been resolved by way of a settlement in which the City of Deming will pay Eckert $1.6 million — ending this extraordinary chapter in the farce<\/a> that is known as the “War on Drugs.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/center>Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968). Follow him on Twitter: @Cann4ing<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The small City of Deming, New Mexico (2010 pop. 14,855) has agreed to pay $1.6 million to a man who had been the victim of what reporters at KOB Eyewitness News 4 in Albuquerque described as “a humiliating violation of [his] body by police and doctors.” Last November, we covered how, what, at most, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,146,126,127,533],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-10462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-new-mexico","category-rights-and-freedoms","category-the-constitution","category-war-on-drugs","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10462"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=10462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}