Friday, November 15, 2013

Unaccountable

Ho-hum, just another day in the police state:

A New Mexico man is suing police for allegedly "subjecting him to multiple digital penetrations and three enemas," among other "shockingly invasive medical procedures" -- all on an invalid warrant, all without finding any drugs -- his lawyers claim.

The lawsuit states that David Eckert, 54, spent more than 12 hours in custody last January at a police station and local hospital after being pulled over for a traffic violation. Yet he was never charged, nor did authorities find illicit substances on him.

Eckert was told he could go home after a third officer issued him a traffic citation. But before he did, Eckert voluntarily consented to a search of him and his vehicle, the affidavit states. A K-9 dog subsequently hit on a spot in the Dodge's driver's seat, though no drugs were found.

....

According to a police affidavit accompanying the lawsuit, a detective asked a different officer to pull over Eckert's 1998 brown Dodge pickup truck for not properly stopping at a stop sign.

After Eckert was pulled over, a Deming police officer said that he saw Eckert "was avoiding eye contact with me," his "left hand began to shake," and he stood "erect (with) his legs together," the affidavit stated.

....

Eckert was then put in "investigative detention" and transported around 2 p.m. to the Deming Police Department.

Sometime after that, a judge signed off a search warrant "to include but not limited to his anal cavity."

The next stop was Gila Regional Medical Center, where the lawsuit states "no drugs were found" in "an x-ray and two digital searches of his rectum by two different doctors." One doctor at this time found nothing unusual in his stool.

Three enemas were conducted on Eckert after 10:20 p.m. A chest X-ray followed, succeeded by a colonoscopy around 1:25 a.m.

After all this, "no drugs were found in or on Plaintiff's person," according to the lawsuit.

Apparently the stormtroopers in this shithole have a hard-on for cornholing random passersby with their dumb dog:

A second lawsuit was filed Friday against southern New Mexico authorities accused of illegally subjecting drug suspects to invasive body cavity searches. And the attorney who filed the cases says she has been getting calls from others saying they were detained after the uncertified drug-sniffing dog at the heart of both cases raised suspicions.

....

The lawsuit says Leo is neither adequately trained nor properly certified for narcotics searches. It says there are no state records showing he's properly certified under New Mexico law.

....

In addition to the two cases filed by Kennedy, the American Civil Liberties Union says it is preparing to sue the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on behalf of a woman who was crossing into El Paso in December and subjected to invasive searches after a drug dog alerted agents.

Attorney Laura Schauer Ives says the woman was strip-searched at the crossing, then taken to the hospital for vaginal and anal probes, a forced bowel movement, X-rays and scans. No drugs were found, the ACLU said, and the hospital is charging her thousands of dollars. Schauer Ives said the woman's medical records refer to her being brought in both by Border Patrol and customs agents. The group has had a Freedom of Information Request pending since April to identify the officers and which departments of CBP were involved.

And let's not forget poor Anthony Mitchell of Henderson, Nevada, who had his door kicked by the local gendarmerie for refusing to let them use his home to spy on his neighbor (thus violating the Third Amendment, where the Deming thugs are violating the Fourth Amendment).

You know, it might be something if our current preznit, who reputedly has some knowledge of Constitutional law, might direct his attorney general to do something useful with his time, rather than griefing potheads and guitar manufacturers.

I don't mean to go all Alex Jones on you here, but there are instances where the man has a point, and such instances appear to be increasing in frequency and intensity. As the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone's not really out to get you. A street cop in Santa Rosa perforates an eighth-grader -- firing eight times, hitting him seven -- for swinging a toy gun too quickly. Things of that sort. Urban and even smaller local police forces routinely inherit heavy-duty SWAT and paramilitary gear now, and they seem more prone to use them, rather than ask questions, or fire a warning or wounding shot.

Look, everyone gets that law enforcement is dirty, dangerous work. When the preponderance of people that you meet and deal with in a given day are assholes and/or idiots, or just generally awful people, it's easy to see how one can eventually come to view most people as inherently bad or dangerous. This can make someone cynical at best, prone to escalate as a first option at worst.

And to all that I say, tough shit, Hopalong. No one forces anyone to be a cop. When you've become an unreasonable person, with deadly weapons, overwhelming force, and an institutional lack of accountability, you are no longer a public servant -- you're a liability, you need to fucking go, and now. There's no excuse whatsoever for any of this shit. There are plenty of good, hard-working police officers out there, and I'm sure they must be disgusted that these animals wear the same uniform, and act with ultimate impunity.

The thing is, as we continue our descent into a volatile, bankrupt, violent, paramilitarized banana republic, there isn't a goddamned thing any of us can do about it. Pray to whatever unjust deity you believe in that you don't get pulled over, I guess.

1 comment:

  1. The people who run this country...heck the world...are running scared because they know the system is crashing. So, they need to make sure to have the oppressive neo-feudal techniques down pat, and a willing corps of retainers to make sure their positions are secure.

    ReplyDelete