- Joined
- Apr 25, 2010
- Messages
- 80,422
- Reaction score
- 29,077
- Location
- Pittsburgh
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
Second NM Lawsuit Filed Over Body Cavity Searches - ABC News
wow thats crazy and this seems to be a thing that is happening in many places
Police turn routine traffic stops into cavity searches
600 and 6000 dollar bills for being innocent?
back up links
Second lawsuit filed against authorities in US state over body cavity searches for drugs
Police turn routine traffic stops into cavity searches
Routine Traffic Stop Turns into14-hour Anal Cavity Search for Drugs
WTF?!?!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.
Albuquerque civil rights attorney Shannon Kennedy filed the new lawsuit against the Hidalgo County sheriff's office on behalf of Timothy Young, who says he was strip-searched in a gas station parking lot, then taken to the hospital for a cavity search. The lawsuit claims the searches were unreasonable, and that the body cavity search was in violation of the search warrant issued. Kennedy says the warrant was issued to search his body but not body cavities.
The sheriff of the border county could not immediately be reached for comment.
Kennedy has also filed suit against the sheriff's office and police in Deming on behalf of a southern New Mexico man who was taken to two hospitals and forced to have anal probes, three enemas, two body X-rays and a colonoscopy following a traffic stop.
wow thats crazy and this seems to be a thing that is happening in many places
Police turn routine traffic stops into cavity searches
Timothy Young had just turned into a gas station in Lordsburg, N.M., at 10 p.m. and was about to fill up his pickup truck when several police cars pulled up behind him. The officers from the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office accused him of failing to use his turn signal, and asked him whether he was using or carrying drugs.
According to a complaint filed Friday in a federal court in New Mexico, what happened next in the October 2012 incident was nothing short of a six-hour nightmare. Young, 31, was forced to strip from the waist down in a public parking lot and then submit his body to an X-ray and anal penetration at a nearby hospital, all under the supervision of peace officers searching for contraband.
In Young’s case, the officers searched his truck with a drug dog, which alerted them that it had detected drugs in the driver’s seat. The police couldn’t find any drugs in the truck, so they ordered Young to drop his pants and underwear in the public parking lot to search him. Then, at 2 a.m., they got a warrant for a body search at the local hospital, where Young was digitally penetrated and X-rayed, according to the complaint.
He was discharged at 4:30 a.m., after cops failed to find contraband in his truck or hidden in his body. He was never arrested or charged with anything throughout the entire ordeal. Later, Gila Medical Center sent him a bill for $600.
Just a few months after Young’s encounter, some of the same officers stopped another man, David Eckert, in a Wal-Mart parking lot for failing to yield at a stop sign. The officers searched his car with a drug dog that alerted them to the smell of drugs. But they couldn’t find any contraband on Eckert or in his vehicle, so they obtained a warrant for a search of his body.
Over the course of 12 hours last January, Eckert was forced to receive an X-ray, CT scan, digital rectal exam, three enemas and a colonoscopy under anesthesia, according to his complaint filed in federal court this week. Eckert says the officers laughed at him at times while he was undergoing the procedures at Gila Regional Medical Center, the same hospital where Young was taken.
Like Young, Eckert was also billed for the procedures — this time for $6,000.
600 and 6000 dollar bills for being innocent?
back up links
Second lawsuit filed against authorities in US state over body cavity searches for drugs
Police turn routine traffic stops into cavity searches
Routine Traffic Stop Turns into14-hour Anal Cavity Search for Drugs