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| (Eckert's Attorney) |
It's a true story. I'm hesitant to post this guy's name, but it's all over the place and he really shouldn't be made to feel like he did anything bad -- at least nothing that warranted this type of response. David Eckert got done shopping at Wal-Mart. He left the store and then made the biggest mistake of his life: he failed to come to a complete stop at a stop-light before merging with ongoing traffic. He got pulled over by the police. They had him get out of his car for some reason. This alone boggles my mind. I've never been asked to leave my car for any traffic violation. The police officers became suspicious of Eckert, claiming that he was "clenching his buttocks" somehow.
So they got a warrant to search his anal cavity for drugs. Because who doesn't shop at Wal-Mart with a rectum-full of narcotics?
The local hospital refused to honor the warrant, claiming that assisting with this search was "unethical."
So the police took the Eckert to the neighboring county -- which was outside the bounds of his search warrant -- and found another hospital and medical team that would complete a search of his anal cavity. This is the list of medical procedures performed on Eckert in a fruitless attempt to find drugs that were never there in the first place:
1. They x-rayed him to see if drugs showed up.
2. They then digitally searched his rectum to search for the non-existent drugs.
3. They then digitally searched his rectum a second time.
4. They gave Eckert an enema, forced him to defecate in front of everyone, and then searched his feces for the non-existent drugs.
5. They gave him a second enema, forced him to defecate in front of everyone, and then search his feces for the non-existent drugs.
6. They gave him a third enema, forced him to defecate in front of everyone, and then searched his feces for the non-existent drugs.
7. They forced him to undergo a second x-ray to search for the non-existent drugs.
8. They then forcibly sedated him and performed a colonoscopy to search for the non-existent drugs.
I've read reports that Eckert was mocked, harassed, and berated by police throughout this encounter. They also repeatedly misplaced the privacy curtain in his room, which exposed him to a public hallway throughout these body searches.
Besides the fact that the warrant was limited to the county where he was detained, it also expired that day at 10:00 PM. He was being prepped for the colonoscopy at 1:00 AM the following morning.
To make things worse, Gila Regional Medical Center had the audacity to send Eckert a bill for these involuntary medical procedures and is presently threatening to send his bill to a collections agency for non-payment.
Needless to say, Eckert has filed a federal lawsuit against City of Deming, NM; Deming police officers Bobby Orosco, Robert Chavez, Officer Hernandez, and Hidalgo County deputies David Arredondo, Robert Rodriguez and Patrick Green. He's also suing Deputy District Attorney Daniel Dougherty and the Gila Regional Medical Center, as well as the medical professionals who assisted with these involuntary procedures.