A second New Mexico resident has come forward today to accuse law enforcement officers in Lordsburg, New Mexico of performing an anal probe on him against his will after a traffic stop just over a year ago.
Last October Timothy Young was followed by police into a gas station, according to a dash cam video of the incident, for making a turn without indicating. Police then took him the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City for an anal examination, suspecting he was hiding drugs inside his body. At the hospital, an X-ray was taken of his abdomen, and then a digital anal probe was performed. Both procedures were performed against his will and neither yielded the presence of illegal substances.
The police were granted a search warrant to conduct the anal cavity search, but violated its reach by crossing county lines to go to Gila Regional Medical Center.
Young went public with his humiliating ordeal a day after media published the painful account of another New Mexico man, David Eckert, who endured multiple anal probes at the hands of police.
Like Young, Eckert was stopped for a minor traffic violation. He had been shopping at the Wal-Mart in Deming on January 2 and failed to stop completely. Like Young, Eckert was also suspected of carrying drugs after a drug dog called "Leo" sniffed his car and took interest in the driver's seat. Both men were also examined at Gila Regional Medical Center. However, on January 2, Eckert was forced to undergo two X-rays, two digital anal examinations, three enemas and a colonoscopy.
Leo, the drug dog responsible for raising enough suspicion for the police officers involved to get search warrants allowing anal cavity searches, lost his certification to be a drug dog in April 2011. There has yet to be any explanation as to why the dog is still on duty.
Eckert is suing law enforcement officers in Deming and Hidalgo County and medical staff at Gila Regional Medical Center for damages. According to Shannon Kennedy, the lawyer r
