A New Mexico man is suing law enforcement officers in Deming and Hidalgo County and medical staff at Gila Regional Medical Center for being anally probed multiple times against his will. David Eckert was stopped by police for failing to stop at a stop sign on January 2. He had been shopping at the Wal-Mart in Deming, and failed to stop completely.
The police officers asked Eckert to get out of his car and while he stood there, a drug dog showed interest in Ecker's driver's seat, according to Eckert's lawsuit. One of the officers also noticed that Eckert was standing very erect, with his legs together, and his buttocks clenched. On this fact alone, the officers took Eckert into custody and got a search warrant to perform an anal cavity search.
The police officers first took Eckert to Mimbres Memorial Hospital, but a doctor there refused to perform the search, stating it was unethical, according to a report by television station KOB 4. The officers then crossed county lines to go to Gila Regional Medical Center where doctors agreed to conduct the requested procedures.
Against his will, Eckert was subjected to a series of invasive, painful and humiliating procedures. First they took an X-ray of his abdomen, which yielded nothing. Then a doctor inserted his fingers into Eckert's anus and found nothing. He repeated the task, only to yield a similar result.
The doctor then inserted an enema and forced Eckert to defecate in front of the police. They search his stool and found nothing. Then they performed the process twice again, finding nothing each time.
The doctors then performed a second X-ray and found nothing in what was probably a very empty bowel.
After that, the doctors sedated Eckert and prepared him surgery, then conducted a colonoscopy whereby a camera was inserted into anus and sent into the large intestine. Nothing was found upon this examination either.
All told, Eckert underwent two X-rays, two manual anal examinations, three enemas and a colonoscopy
