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Thursday, November 7, 2013

Another Insane New Mexico Traffic Stop Comes to Light: Same dog, same anal probe of innocent driver at same hospital



It recently came to light that in January, police officers, a prosecutor, a judge, and doctors in Southern New Mexico forced a man named David Eckert to endure multiple invasive medical procedures to check for nonexistent drugs in his colon after allegedly clenching his butt in a routine, pretext traffic stop (when a police dog allegedly alerted to drugs).  We reported it here.


Now, KOB4, which broke the original story, has broken another one.  Seriously.  New Mexico has gone to hell. 

As KOB4 aptly puts it: Another man, another minor traffic violation, another incident with Leo the K-9 and another example of the violation of a man's body.

Police reports show that Timothy Young was stopped because he didn’t use his blinker (classic pretextual traffic stop to check for drugs).  Again, the same police dog alerted.  Young was taken to Gia Regional Medical Center in Silver City, where he was subjected to medical procedures including x-rays of his stomach (which should have ended all doubt), but then also got an anal exam. Again, police found nothing, and again the procedures were done without consent, and in a county not covered by the search warrant.

We've learned more about that drug dog, Leo, that seems to get it wrong pretty often. He might be getting it wrong because he's not even certified in New Mexico.

KOB also tells us The doctors from the Gila Regional Medical Center have been turned over to the state licensing board.  It's possible they could lose the ability to practice medicine.
And the police officers will be answering to a law enforcement board. 

They’re also going to answer to a Federal Judge and hopefully the Justice Department after the civil suit is over.  There is no greater invasion of liberty than the invasion of a person’s body by the State and by State actors. When it’s done under the color of law based on an uncertified police dog, it’s inexcusable. It’s a crime committed by the State.  No war on drugs is worth this form of sadism.  No one driving on the street should be subjected to this. What’s wrong with Southern New Mexico? What’s wrong with the Gila Regional Medical Center?  What sort of evil can grow down there?

Full story and italicized quotes:

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3210356.shtml?cat=500#.Unrqk-LfmSo

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