3 Enemas Later, Still No Drugs | Hacker News Reader

3 Enemas Later, Still No Drugs

nytimes.com

264 pointsRougeFemme149 comments

The NY Times fails to mention that only the lawsuit against the city was settled. There are still active lawsuits against Gila Regional Medical Center and the doctors, and against the district attorney. The names of the perpetrators are:

* Dr. Robert Wilcox

* Dr. Okay H. Odocha

* Deputy district attorney Daniel Dougherty

The officers involved were Deming police officers Bobby Orosco, Robert Chavez, FNU (first name unknown) Hernandez; and Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies David Arredondo, Robert Rodriguez, Patrick Green.

In my opinion, doctors Robert Wilcox and Okay H. Odocha are rapists. Wilcox and Odocha sexually violated this man forcibly and repeatedly for over ten hours. This is rape, and they should be charged with rape.

In my opinion, the police officers and deputy district attorney Daniel Dougherty are accessories to rape, at the very least.

You can see the rapists (again, my opinion) here:

http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/O/Okay-H-Odocha-M-D-.as...

http://www.grmc.org/Doctor-Directory/W/Robert-M-Wilcox-M-D-....

The list of defendants was copied directly from here:

http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_24461411/lordsb...

Thank you for calling out actual people! That seems to happen less and less. You always only hear company names these days.

Didn't a trial already set a presidence for the "only following orders" defense for doctors? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial

From the article: "Police are caught in a difficult balancing act"

No, they are not. If they truly believe he had drugs, they arrest him, he gets representation, and they try for search warrant.

The Doctor who performed this torture should have his medical license pulled as a warning to all others and all these police officers should be in jail.

The doctors and nurses involved should flat out be imprisoned for rape. That's what it was. Penetration without consent, explicit or implied (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_consent#First_aid).

I didn't see it mentioned in this writeup, but they did have a search warrant. Sort of.

1. The warrant was only valid within the county. After the first doctor refused, the police took him to a hospital in another county.

2. The warrant had an expiration time on it. The warrant was no longer valid when the colonoscopy was performed.

Great, they violated a search warrant - criminally - jail is still the place for them.

Should that matter? Doctors have a hippocratic oath to uphold.

This isn't ancient Greece. Of the few medical schools that use the Hippocratic oath, none of them make it mandatory.

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted - what you're saying is mostly correct[0] and actually relevant. The Hippocratic oath is very misunderstood and improperly invoked in public discourse.

The Hippocratic oath is the medical equivalent of swearing a judge in on a Bible - symbolically very important, but of next to no literal significance.

For example, I bet most people don't know that the Hippocratic oath says the following:

> I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work[1]

By definition, any surgeon is violating the Hippocratic oath on a daily basis.

There are codes of ethics that doctors are expected to uphold, and the principles behind the Hippocratic oath are still relevant today, but the actual Hippocratic oath is all but obsolete.

I'm sure that the alleged actions of the doctors question violated whichever code of ethics they are bound to, but we should be discussing those instead, not the Hippocratic oath - if there is any possibility of their license being revoked, those codes are the bar against which their actions will be measured.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_oath#Modern_use_an... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_oath#English_trans...

Regardless of whether they had a warrant, the doctor[s] who performed the procedure should be stripped of their license[s] and prosecuted for fraud, and any nurses or techs involved should be terminated. There's no plausible line of reasoning by which the procedures he was subjected to were medically appropriate or necessary.

But this won't happen because "they were just doing their job" and the medical licensing boards have long since abdicated any pretense of a code of professional conduct. (Witness the doctors sullying their credentials to peddle snake oil supplements and diet aids on late night TV).

This article reminds me of an experience I had 3 years ago in Dublin, CA.

I was driving home to San Jose at about 3am, after spending the evening playing live music at a bar in Dublin. I was pulled over as I was driving from the bar to I-680.

The cops made me get out of my car. They took my pulse and examined my eyelids with their flashlights repeatedly. I was shivering a bit as it was cold and I was wearing a t-shirt. They accused me of being under the influence of drugs based on my quickened pulse and eyelids. They searched my car, of course finding nothing. I was handcuffed and taken to jail, where I had to spend ~12 hours until the next day when my wife picked me up. My car was towed (which I had to pay to get out of the impound yard).

I was completely sober that night. In fact, I've been straight edge my whole life.

It was a humiliating experience -- I had to give urine test in front of the cops once I was taken to jail. I had to get mugshots (which I assume are searchable online somewhere). That said, it's nothing compared to the humiliation the guy in the article experienced.

I definitely lost all faith in police that night. As a fairly well-off software engineer, I could deal with the costs of getting my car out of the impound yard and missing work to show up in court (no charges were pressed). For someone less fortunate, it could have really screwed up their life. The fact that police can mess with people like this is unfair and unjust.

> which I assume are searchable online somewhere

Better: mugshots.com or some-such will probably try to charge you money to remove your listings. Disruptive technologies FTW!

Yeesh... I think about this whenever I see one of those mugshot ads on a website. My paranoid side wonders if this ad is "personalized".

I think the cops should now be billed for that 1.6mill. Garnish there salary to the end of their worthless life. Why should the taxpayers be stuck with these bills. The taxpayers didn't abuse and humiliated that poor man on a fucking whim, the individual police officers did. No pension, immediate dismissal, and garnishment of wages is the least that they deserve! This case should not end because they settled, make an example of these fucks.

Also, even a first year law student would be able to easily throw out any and all evidence they have obtained this way. So the entire procedure was worthless, even if they had succeeded. Makes their conduct even worse. Evil and stupid!

You don't think the people who hired the officers and supervised them should bear any of the responsibility?

I don't think there's a law against criminal stupidity and keeping lax discipline.

Now the cleanup, there's a problem. The usual and proven way to deal with corrupt police is to fire everyone and bring in new people from the other side of the country with no local obligations. But how do you do this in an impoverished county in New Mexico where no one wants to go?

> I don't think there's a law against criminal stupidity and keeping lax discipline.

There may not be a law against criminal stupidity, but there is certainly (by definition) a law against criminal negligence (if there weren't a law against it, it wouldn't be criminal). If, for example, the officers' supervisors established a work culture that condoned framing people that could easily rise to the legal standard of criminal negligence.

Which would be the general public. Which is both bearing some of the responsibility and most of the bill.

Make them insure themselves out of their own pension fund.

This is an incredibly good, innovative idea. Thanks for sharing it.

Why should the taxpayers be stuck with these bills

Simply because the police unions put it into the city contract and the politicians signed it.

Until taxpayers start demanding more accountability and professionalism from their police force, they should be stuck with those bills.

Police do stuff like this (and get away with it) because the public, generally speaking, assumes that anyone who is abused or treated unfairly by police must have done something to deserve it.

The individuals involved should certainly be punished (though they rarely ever are), but the taxpayers have some culpability as well.

I pay taxes. I'm blown away by your assertion that I'm to any extent at blame for this crime. Some people abuse a man and I'm at fault because I don't write to my senator?

As a tax-paying citizen, it is your duty to yourself, your family and the society you live in (and leave for the next generation), that you exercise your right to write to your congress-critter/mayor/block-rep, as and when you feel an injustice is happening, especially something that is a gross abuse of authority.

Writing your congressman is the least you could do. Maybe get out there and start filming the police, raise awareness about jury nullification, encourage peaceful parenting so we don't have bullies on the police payroll--etc. These are more effective than writing some narcissist who cares more about getting re-elected than what's just.

Writing your congressman is useless, unless you're signing a check.

I don't think anyone is accusing you personally. Just that collectively, the taxpayers as a class, elect such people. That's why there's still a war on drugs. If most of the voting population was remotely rational, things would be fixed.

So yes, the taxpayers should pay. They, as a group, are responsible. (The individual LEOs involved in this case should be harshly penalized, too.)

> If most of the voting population was remotely rational, things would be fixed

What if the Democrats and Republicans are both too beholden to the status quo to make changes, and a rational voter figures that their vote means something if they vote for one of the two main parties as the lesser of two evils, whereas voting for a third party is basically throwing their vote away?

It's easy to sell me on the idea that most people aren't rational voters, but saying that the situation will automatically be fixed if everyone votes rationally is a much more difficult sell. It would be a good start, but you'd need some other things to happen.

If more people were "rational" then they wouldn't being insane about drug usage, like most of America is. Politicians would respond in kind. Even within the silly two party system, things would improve.

But to get there, there'd need to be less than what, 30%? of voters being extremely anti-drug?

No, they should not. Taxes are not voluntary. You act as if we all merrily signed up for this system, when in fact it was forced upon us since birth. This idea that if we somehow elect the right person that horrors like the drug war will go away, or that something else won't replace it, is a an abdication of true responsibility. The tax payer, like the individual in this story, is a victim of a predatory institution.

It's not "somehow electing the right person", it's a full change in society. If most people didn't care about drug usage, then this wouldn't be happening.

The buck stops with the voter.

But both parties in every election have the same opinion on this issues - which is that the current system is noble and great. How can it be the voter's fault if there's no other option?

Never heard of a primary election?

The politicians pretty accurately represent their constituents. The voters demand more tough on crime pols and that's exactly what they get.

A primary election is an excellent place to screw the party leaders. They are looking ahead and sometimes find out that a decently coordinated attack can take away their golden candidate.

> Some people abuse a man and I'm at fault because I don't write to my senator?

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -Edmund Burke

The problem with the system is that we've made voters the ultimate arbiters of what happens but then diluted their individual responsibility for the outcomes to such a degree by federalizing and centralizing everything that you don't want to own the consequences of the power you hold.

If you had voted for a sheriff who perpetrated this injustice, would you be so quick to absolve yourself of your responsibility? Would you vote for him again? How is it any different when it comes time to vote for his bosses?

That's not individual cop's problem. They were taught this way. They were taught if you get a permission from a dog that alone justifies subjecting a person to torture. They were taught if a criminal addicted to every known drug in existence says something in order to lower his sentence, it's ok to use this as sole basis to break into homes and shoot whoever is in there. And the others, like doctors were taught to willingly participate in these abuses, because drugs! think of the children!

Making an example of these fucks would do nothing, because every citizen of the US that supports war on drugs is creating these fucks. Until US citizens wake up and demand the government to stop the war on US citizens, that and worse is going to happen. In war, that's what happens. This war - longest and most harmful war in American history - has to be ended. And US citizens have the power to end it, if only they has the will and reason to stop believing in lies that WOD proponents feed them.

I don't think that blame is a conserved quantity. Yes, the whole war on drugs complex is a problem, but that doesn't absolve the individual cops of responsibility.

More pragmatically, a lack of serious consequences is part of why cops have learned to behave this way. Get rid of the war on drugs, and you haven't fully solved the problem. Nothing about this situation would be any more acceptable if instead of drugs, they had been searching for child pornography, a bomb, or an abused animal.

> Nothing about this situation would be any more acceptable if instead of drugs, they had been searching for child pornography, a bomb, or an abused animal.

The difference is that the other things you've listed are far less common and far less lucrative than illegal drugs. If you took away the war on drugs then you could give law enforcement significantly less than their current budget and still have them allocate more officers to each case, have them each spend more time on it, train them each better, etc. etc.

The war on drugs is the primary impetus for the militarization of the police force. Police should be investigators, not soldiers. The war on drugs encourages them to behave like soldiers which is the root cause of their unacceptable behavior.

The police are already militarized. Yes, that happened primarily due to the war on drugs, but that doesn't mean that ending the war on drugs will fix it.

The bleeding doesn't stop just because you pull the knife out of the wound.

Well sure, removing the war on drugs doesn't solve 100% of the problem instantaneously. But it solves 80% of it over a relatively short period of time. You still have to stop the bleeding, but you at least move the problem to "stop the bleeding" from "prevent additional stab wounds." And properly ending the war on drugs should imply "bringing the troops home" so to speak: Dissolving the paramilitary police units and separating their members from one another, and putting them on desk jobs or into community outreach programs that don't involve making arrests or serving warrants. (Or making it attractive for them to take early retirement.)

>Making an example of these fucks would do nothing

It might. Making an example of these fucks might make the next group of fucks think twice.

I absolutely agree that these cops are the product of American public insatiable need to feel as "safe" as possible, because, as you mention, think of the damn children! But the kind of search that they preformed, if successful, would be still useless, because any evidence derived as a result of it would be suppressed. So, I don't think any one trained these idiots to do this.

Many police unions have clause that make the cops be personally liable of criminal acts. They should be criminally tried, convicted, dismissed, jailed, and then have this 1.6 million collected against their future earning till its paid back, with interest. Unless the doctors who preformed the procedures were somehow threatened by the cops, they should pay as well. This is just inexcusable.

I do agree, the war on drugs is at the core of this problem. It's no longer the war on drugs, it's the war on drug users, the people.

No one trained them to do exactly this, but they were trained to be aggressive and ruthless, behave like soldiers on a tactical mission in war, not like guardians protecting the population. Guardians wouldn't do this to a person, soldiers have to do what has to be done for the mission - if the enemy hides weapons in body cavities, then cavity search it is, what else would you do with the enemy?

The cops, of course, could be punished, and in this case even the blue wall probably won't save them. But punishing single individuals would not prevent next time from happening, it would keep happening like clockwork.

And Himler was taught that killing millions of minorities was a good and honest action, yet the judge still found him guilty at Nuremberg. It's generally accepted that "I was just following orders" is not an acceptable reason for perpetuating atrocities.

The actions of police officers is a symptom. The disease is the war on drugs (and similar "tough on crime, soft on evidence" policies). That doesn't excuse what the police do, but it defines what you need to change if you don't want it to continue.

I don't think we can hope for the Nuremberg for the War on Drugs. But at least we could hope for a peace treaty?

Nitpick - Himmler wasn't tried at Nuremberg. He committed suicide while in British custody:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler

Police officers should be required have insurances to cover those lawsuits and any damage should be payed by the insurance company.

This way police officers who keep screwing up and abusing their power would get higher and higher premiums until they reach a point where they can't be a cop anymore because it would be to expensive for them. It would weed out the assholes and taxpayer would not have to pay directly.

Great idea, except certain types of police work have a much higher likelihood of being accused of brutality or handling cases incorrectly. Work property crimes? No one will ever accuse you of abuse. Work narcotics or traffic stops in a rough part of town? A lot more likely.

A lot of this is solved with a requirement that police officers must always be on cam (cameras that they carry on their person must be on at all times). Everybody benefits except the scumbag cops and the criminals.

Isn't it curious, then, that one of the most staunch arguments against police cameras are the police unions?

I have family members who are (good) police officers and I've discussed this with them in great detail. Their concerns boil down to the following:

- Some of the pro-camera advocates are in favor of gun cameras, which turn on when a gun is drawn. The fairly reasonable argument against those is that they fail to capture what happened immediately prior to the gun being drawn, lacking context

- The always-on cameras are unpleasant to consider, simply because who wants to be recorded all the time? There's a concern that a casual conversation before a police incident might be taken out of context or used to embarass the officer

- There are also cameras that are designed to activate either manually or automatically when you leave your squad car. These are better, but apparently there are reliability issues, or what happens when a camera accidentally does not turn on? Is the officer automatically going to be judged as negligent?

- Beyond these things, police departments have generally terrible IT. Who's going to maintain the cameras? Who's going to manage the retention of the video? What about the privacy of the officers? And so on.

Note, I'm not saying these are universally valid complaints, or that the reality would be as bad as officers fear. But I think that in the same way people in general chafe against oversight that they worry could be used against them, police officers worry about being monitored and tracked moreso than they already are.

When I asked them what they thought should be done to curb police abuses, one of them who is a senior police official pointed out that study after study shows that the vast majority of police abuses are committed by a very small number of officers. That the better way to handle police officers who abuse their power is to make it easier to get rid of police officers who are bad instead of spending lots of money and effort to try to watch all officers.

They did all agree though that in a perfect world cameras would be awesome, because it would remove a lot of the worry they have around someone lying about their behavior. Their concerns were around real-world implementation.

I'm personally in favor of cameras for police, but I wanted to present the other side of the argument I've heard.

I don't see any problem with giving the officer complete control over the camera.

If the cameras are easy to use and reliable and such, the officers should be demanding that they be available, it will only make their testimony more credible.

(to the extent they are going to abuse their power, they can just go set the stage for the camera when they are off duty or whatever, so I don't think that is the right case to optimize for)

In fact institutions should never carry the blame alone. In every case may it be police officers or company employees, the actual people who did something should always be prosecuted as well. Institutions eating up all the punishment and individuals getting away is ruining the legal system and our society. But companies are people...

And if anybody is interested how cops are usually "punished" for things like these, check this out: http://reason.com/archives/2014/01/26/pepper-sprayer-hits-th...

The point that Ken White of the Popehat blog said it best [1]:

"This case sickened me. But I can't say that it surprised me. The only thing out of it that would surprise me is if any of the individual police officers or sheriff's deputies faced any genuine significant consequences arising from it."

In other words, the victim gets a $1.6 million settlement comes out of the pockets of the taxpayers. There are zero personal consequences to the individual police officers actually responsible for what occurred in this case.

[1] http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/16/update-the-quantum-of-reco...

You ask yourself: where is the public prosecution? Where are the criminal cases against everyone involved?

You also ask yourself why the NY Times only mentions the civil suit and the settlement.

That is an excellent question. What happened here is obviously criminal, so why did no prosecutor pick up the case? Are cops so much beyond the reach of the law that they even get away with this blatant crimes.

One solution for police misconduct that I heard recently is to require officers to purchase malpractice insurance[1]. The idea is to incentivize good behavior, as bad actors would pay higher premiums because they're a higher risk (or simply leave law enforcement altogether).

That makes a lot of sense to me. The police do things like this because they rarely, if ever, are held accountable for their actions.

I expect the people who have a strong personal interest in that idea never happening would counter the proposal with warnings of frightful, dire consequences.

[1] https://twitter.com/ClarkHat/status/420254393444093952

I first heard someone mention something like this maybe 1-2 months ago and think it's great. The person compared it to being bonded like an electrician or plumber. The process to fire police officers in many districts is very difficult so this could be one method to get control of the situation.

The other great thing about this is when you read about a cop shooting someone for no cause, usually there were warning signs like he escalated a ton of situations with other suspects. This makes a third party (that is interested in not loosing millions to a victims family) start running psych tests and algorithms against arrest and escalation records. At some point the data will get good enough that people will be un-insurable before they kill someone.

> Eckert, protesting all the while, says he asked to make a phone call but was told that he had no right to do so because he hadn’t actually been arrested.

Had to read that a few times to make sure.

What were his rights at that moment?

Thus the magic phrase: "Am I being detained? Am I free to leave?"

While this sounds like very useful advice in general, I wonder if uttering this magic phrase would actually have resulted in this man from being released? The facts of the case suggest that these actions were not done under the guise of a voluntary search/interview, which is what these phrases are generally designed to deal with.

"Am I under arrest?" "Am I being detained?" "Than am I free to go?"

Many of us know what rights we have when we encounter law enforcement, but many do not. I suppose therein partially lies the author's point -- that those who aren't as well educated or might not have access to legal advice are at a disadvantage.

So the let's suppose the cops answer "You're not detained. You're not free to leave.". What do you do now?

Then you're screwed, cause you're dealing with cops that don't care about the actual law and just want to nail you to the wall.

The standard for a detention is that a reasonable person would believe they weren't free to go. So in your hypothetical, the fact that the officer says you're not detained doesn't matter. If he says you're not free to leave then you're detained. From that point, other than identifying yourself, you should not answer any questions and ask to speak with an attorney.

But that's exactly what happened:

1) He was in handcuffs, so apparently not free to go.

2) Police told him he can't contact a lawyer because he's not arrested.

3) Police forced him to undergo a medical procedure (still, without being "arrested")

I'm not sure if "not answering any questions" would have helped the victim in that case.

I suppose that's why they paid him $1.6M.

I'd want to call my insurance company to make sure they cover forced penetration. Nobody wants a high out-of-pocket bill for getting two involuntary enemas and a colonoscopy.

Also starts the paper trail for the lawsuit.

3 enemas but who's counting

They seem to be doing that more often lately. I guess you can sue them, but it's still going to be your word against theirs.

I think the typical answer to the question is silence. The cop does not say anything at all, and just pretends that he did not hear the question.

I think I'd have to go along with it, sue for wrongful arrest and so on later. You might get away with fighting back if you could show that they were going to rape you, as in this case. There's some case law that suggests you can resist if the alternative is serious injury or death, as per the rules pertaining to self-defence.

But I'd hate to wager my freedom on it - case law isn't always consistently followed and will vary depending on where you are. And really, how can you prove it? You get to court and it's their word against yours, and the first strike against you is that they're in uniform and you're not.

On the other hand, when the alternative is rape... would I rather be dead than raped? Can't say ahead of time. I'd rather be dead than go to jail. If I would rather be dead than raped, then I can fight them, and if I lose the court case I can still kill myself and escape jail that way.

> You might get away with fighting back if you could show that they were going to rape you, as in this case.

There is an important difference between "get away with it, legally", and "get away with it, without being shot."

That happened to me after being stopped by the police in Tokyo. They wanted to search my bag, I refused. Since I wasn't a suspect of anything and they had no warrant, they couldn't actually take my bag and search it without my consent. I asked if I was arrested, they said no, I asked if I could then leave, they said no.

Eventually they asked for "backup", even though I wasn't offering any physical resistance (I wasn't getting arrested after all), and then there were 5 officers grilling me as to why I was refusing an illegal search. I resisted for over 1 hour, then finally I relented and "consented" to the search.

He, and several of the other examples, were in handcuffs when taken to these hospitals. If that's not being detained, I don't know what is.

That seems like an interpretation of the situation that requires a lot of assumptions beyond the bare facts.

The police were acting well outside the law, and so I don't think knowing his rights would have helped this man.

Which is why they awarded him $1.6 million and this is written up in the NYT.

I don't follow the logic here. The claim is that he could have somehow avoided this situation by acting differently.

The fact that the actions of the police were later determined to be unlawful, isn't evidence for this claim.

So that's what repeated anal rape goes for these days?

> Many of us know what rights we have when we encounter law enforcement,

"Law enforcement" is also trained to encourage you not to assert those rights. Most people don't deal well with being shouted at by a guy with a gun, so police are trained to get angry and shout-y right away. How long would you spend reasoning about your rights when faced with an angry guy with a gun, with no witnesses around?

Judging by his previous conviction he might have been on probation/parole which has a whole different set of rights than a truly "free" individual

Even felons have to say 'yes' to anal rape if there is not a valid warrent. Parole or not, you can't just rape someone 6 or seven times.

This story is the only response needed when someone says "I don't care because I don't have anything to hide".

Exactly, though depending on the subject's intelligence I also like to provide Moxie's excellent post [0].

[0]: http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/we-should-all-have-somethin...

I do wonder if there is an end run here to either the state medical board or the specialist certifying organization for the doctors. these docs pretty clearly performed medical procedures on patients without consent or a court order. doctors need to know that if they comply with illegal police orders, they run the risk of losing their license or board certification.

I wonder if there's a way we can work through our own doctors. Send them an email saying that it horrifies you that doctors can get away with this. Ask them if they agree and if they can raise their concern to the medical board.

If there was an internal rejection of this sort of thing by doctors, maybe the medical boards would feel enabled to take action.

The American Medical Association take stand against doctors' participation in execution by lethal injection.

The "following orders" defense doesn't work either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_Trial

Generally speaking, doctors are forbidden to perform procedures without patient consent. If the patient affirmatively refuses consent, the doctor can be charged with assault and/or battery.

If a patient is a threat to themselves, or others, then certain protocols apply. The doctors are most definitely not excused from liability in those cases.

>an officer wrote that Eckert’s posture was “erect and he kept his legs together.”

I think maybe the cop in question needs a basic anatomy lesson. He seems to think that holding one's legs together is required if one is hiding something in one's rectum.

Butts do not work like that.

and if his legs are apart, that can be interpreted as aggression. no win situation - they were looking for an excuse to go to town on this guy...

Regarding this part:

"Doctors took X-rays of Eckert’s abdomen and performed a rectal examination. No drugs were found, so doctors performed a second rectal exam, again unavailing. Doctors then gave Eckert an enema and forced him to have a bowel movement in the presence of a nurse and policeman, according to a lawsuit that Eckert filed. When no narcotics were found, a second enema was administered. Then a third."

One of the many problems with allowing this sort of procedure is that it shapes who signs up to be a policeman, and who quits the police force. Consider the statistics regarding psychopathy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

"A 2008 study using the PCL:SV found that 1.2% of a US sample scored 13 or more out of 24, indicating "potential psychopathy"

There is also the somewhat controversial condition known as "sadism":

http://www.jaapl.org/content/34/1/61.full

"Sadistic individuals have poor behavioral controls, manifested by a short temper, irritability, low frustration tolerance, and a controlling nature. From an interpersonal standpoint, they are noted to be harsh, hostile, manipulative, lacking in empathy, cold-hearted, and abrasive to those they deem to be their inferiors. Their cognitive nature is considered rigid and prone to social intolerance, and they are fascinated by weapons, war, and infamous crimes or perpetrators of atrocities."

In a civil, decent society, most of these behaviors are driven underground, and treated as criminal. A civil and decent society strives to avoid situations in which criminals become society's leaders. The worst aspects of war and totalitarian regimes is that they empower psychopaths and sadists.

In her book "Prison we choose to live inside" Doris Lessing makes the point that many institutions are shaped by the self-selection of those who chose to work there. She mentions the idealistic, conscientious young man who joins the police thinking that he will be able to help the public, but if he finds the work brutal and inhumane, he quits and finds some other job where he feels he can do more to help the public. And yet he is exactly the kind of man that much of the public actually wants to have as a police officer: idealistic and conscientious and authentically wanting to help people.

When we allow police work to consist of repeated rectal exams of people who are not under arrest, then the good people will be driven out of the police force, and the police force will become a very attractive profession for those people whom are the most likely to abuse the power of being a police officer. The public would be wise to feel genuine terror at the thought of a police force that consists of the kinds of people who actually enjoy the kind torture described in this article.

> it shapes who signs up to be a policeman, and who quits the police force.

I rather informally approach this with another question -- "What happens to the high school bullies when they graduate?".

My feeling is a significant number end up working as policemen or join the military for the thrills of it. I have known of few such cases. One was a corrupt policeman (now dead) that was known for beating his family when drunk. The other, not sure if corrupt in his day job, but was known for physical abuse inflicted on his wife and child.

I know, I know, there are good decent people working these jobs. It is just the ones I know about closer, that chose law enforcement as a profession, happen to not be very nice people to spend time with.

Maybe it just says something about my family and acquaintances as well, that is another way to look at it perhaps.

Most high school bullies don't live up to this myth of perpeutating their bullihood through legitimate work. They have a hard time keeping jobs, struggle with substance abuse, personal relationships, etc. The stuff that leads to bullying (low self-esteem, broken home life, antisocial tendencies) is far more likely to manifest itself in being the one arrested, than in a successful career in a chain of command.

For the benefit of anyone else who was wondering if the low self-esteem thing was true, it is; Bullies and bullying victims have lower self-esteem and for both groups the greater the frequency the lower the self-esteem.

Bullying and victimization: prevalence and relationship to gender, grade level, ethnicity, self-esteem, and depression.

http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/15053498/reload=0;jsession...

This study investigated the prevalence of bullying and victimization among students in grades 7 and 8. It also explored the relationship of bullying and victimization to gender, grade level, ethnicity, self-esteem, and depression. Three survey instruments were used to obtain data from a convenience sample of 454 public school students. Twenty-four percent reported bullying involvement. Chi-square tests indicated significantly more male than female bullying involvement, seventh graders reported more involvement than did eighth graders, and there were no statistically significant differences in involvement based on ethnicity. Both bullies and victims manifested higher levels of depression than did students who were neither bullies nor victims. There were no significant differences between groups in terms of self-esteem.

This really speaks to me. My father in law was police officer for 8 or 9 years before he quit because he was tired of working with "dumb bullies".

I have a friend that was turned down by the police force because he tested too smart. We were all amazed what that said about our police force.

And then there is the RCMP a rather bigoted saying you hear is what gets you in is "tits, tan or a turban".

And you are repeating this 'rather bigoted saying' here why?

The argument here is that the money spent to train a new officer and have him learn on the job would be wasted on her/him if they were to smart as they would get bored quickly and quit. Not saying it is the best argument but that is what I have read as the reason for rejecting high IQ applicants.

And the cost of not having smart officers is not taken off the police's budget ;)

It's not just the police, either. Keep in mind that the police only had to try two doctors before they found one who would cooperate with them.

They shouldn't be allowed to fish for someone who will accept. The fact that one doctor disagreed on ethical grounds should be enough to prompt them to seek the counsel of others to determine whether or not to be persistent. After the second doctor refused, that should be enough to come to the conclusion that they should have ceased their quest to find a doctor who would acquiesce.

The worse thing about reading this is that none of it surprised me (even him getting billed for it). The article didn't mention if any disciplinary action happened to the cops but I'm guessing none.

Even if there was disciplinary action, there was certainly not criminal prosecution.

It's well documented that police who commit crimes (perhaps in this case detention, rape) are far less likely to be prosecuted.

I wonder if and how such a bill would be legally enforceable. He never requested any services from the hospital and he also never got into a emergency condition where the hospital was forced to safe his life. It's like if a random person cuts your hair off on the street and then charges you a barber service.

What I wanna know is, if he refused to the medical procedures, aren't the doctors committing a crime by forcing them on him against his will?

Wondering this too. They basically raped him, it's just that there is no prosecution. Is there any way for concerned out-of-county or even out-of-state citizens to trigger prosecution at a federal level?

Federal prosecutors generally have no jurisdiction unless the crime involves crossing state borders, national security, a federal employee, or occurred on federal property. Raping an ordinary citizen does not violate any federal law, it's a state issue.

Civil rights cases are federal since in the past states wouldn't prosecute them. If he was a protected minority class (black, native american, woman) he'd have a federal case.

"Bill 'em all and let god sort it out" is pretty much the M.O. of every American medical institution.

It probably would not be legally enforceable. And it's probable the hospital never actually expected to get any of it.

I've been following this story since last year and that is what I am wondering about as well. The procedures were performed at the request of law enforcement, so the way I see it, law enforcement should be responsible for any charges incurred.

Maybe there needs to be something in the law that people can't be billed under these circumstances.

This made me ponder, too.

As a paramedic, we are often called to our County Jail.

If the patient is in custody, the bill is sent to the County.

If they didn't anticipate the patient being in custody much longer (awaiting a bail hearing, or drunk or such), they'd often start arranging their release after calling us.

This would have handy "side effects", namely if they thought the patient was faking it, "now you're not in custody, you're going to get all these bills - still have chest pain?"

That practice has been discontinued though. Some patients discovered that once off County property, they could AMA (refuse care against medical advice) and we'd have to let them go...

What really upsets me, despite all this law enforcement's abuse, that the victims were billed for those procedures. What?! Police is forcing someone, against their will, to take medical exams and then one has to pay for that?

That fact seemed to be the common thread between the case, and I wondered if being billed with no ability to pay is what brought their cases to the public eye.

If the state had picked up the tab, would they have got away with it? How many similar cases exist where the victim has gone away quietly, too humiliated to complain?

Why do all these articles suppose that the upper and middle classes don't really have sympathy for the lower class who are generally subject to this sort of "crime" (at least I feel it was).

Most of us are not so out-of-touch that we can't also declare that what happened to this guy was WRONG. And we're also not so self-centered that we can't feel both sympathy and empathy. Or maybe they only teach that to journalists?

Because it's the middle classes pushing the tough-on-crime politicking that causes long sentences, overpopulated prisons, and paramilitarised police using abusive powers. It takes an abuse of power this strong to make them take notice, as a general demographic.

Yes, police brutality disproportionately affects the poor, but by no means are the middle class exempt. I can attest to this personally. I have never written about this before, but I am a middle-class, college-educated white person who was beaten rather mercilessly by the police for "resisting arrest". The resistance, by the way, was entirely verbal, specifically, I said: "no I don't think that's a good idea" and slowly backed away from them. No cursing, or disrespect, or any threatening motion.

I was then beaten rather brutally on by thigh and buttocks with a police baton such that I was unable to sit without severe pain for almost a year, and then cuffed so tightly that I still have nerve problems from the incident, almost 10 years later.

The police know very well not to beat you in your vitals (you risk dying) or your face (too bloody/visible). So they beat you viciously on your thighs/buttocks/shoulders/upper back. I lost count after a couple of blows. I then had two 200+ lb men sit on me, with one continuing to beat me with the baton. I had never physically resisted them beyond slowly backing away with hands up in a motion of surrender.

I was intoxicated, and they would arguably have been well within their rights to physically detain me and cuff me (I was singing drunkenly in a public square), but my beating was entirely because I dared to contradict them, not because I pose any kind of risk.

When I was half-dragged into a jail cell full of about 50 tattooed gang members, in which I was the only Caucasian, I felt much, much safer that I did with all the police officers of my own race who had just beat me senseless. Honestly. I was never threatened by any of my jail-mates, and at least two expressed concern about my condition (I was moaning as softly as I could).

When I asked why the police officers why they had beaten me in the police car, they told me I was resisting. However, no resisting charge was ever filed -- I was only charged with misdemeanor public intoxication, to which I pled no contest. This was all witnessed in public so I'm sure they realized they would have a hard time making it stick if I decided to fight the charges.

And to be sure, were I black and/or poor looking, things might have been much worse. And to be clear -- the pain I suffered compares nothing to the rapes suffered by the victims of this report.

Before that point, I viewed the police as kind of like the fire department, or a similar public safety organization, not as brutal thugs. I've since become very interested in the matter and learned how wrong I was.

I do recognize that a minority of police officers truly do care about their community, and not about power and adrenaline, but they're sadly decreasing in number because they don't fit in most modern police departments (and I'm also sure that there are certain police departments that are run well from the top that defy this stereotype). I've had the opportunity to observe this all up close through my involvement with another community organization that sometimes works alongside the local police department. I've heard up close how police talk to one another, and how they view the public.

But don't kid yourself. We live in a police state whose powers are growing by the year, spied on by the federal police/government and beaten down by the local police whenever we protest our treatment. The lower classes have traditionally been the primary victims, but as class disparity increases, and power centralization continues, the middle class will find itself a victim of police violence more and more frequently, for causes even more egregious than what I just described.

My condolences. I have such aversion to Police types and I wish there was more local civilian control over police departments. If there is enough support here we should seriously consider what we can do to deter poor police behavior.

We live in a country that per capita incarcerates more of its citizens than any other in the world. Our society is by and large very safe. Yet there is still a drive to lock up even more people, for longer terms, for silly offences, and further, to turn more and more tort laws into criminal laws. At some point this has to stop. These stories are far more often becoming the norm, and I find it disgusting. The Constitution and our system of laws do not guarantee your absolute safety... They guarantee your freedom, and that justice will be served if you are wronged. I read these stories with a heavy heart.

I am so glad this case is getting wide spread attention.

There is no reason hospitals should be doing rectal exams or X-rays for the benefit of the local police department as a favor. Now that there has been a massive settlement, I am sure every hospital administrator and lawyer has been advising the ER to not do this shit.

Frankly, it was the doctors and nurses that did wrong here. As dumb as it is, the misguided law and policy suggests police should aggressively pursue drug crimes. I am quite sure the settlement is largely being paid by the hospital/doctors.

Actually none of it is being paid by the hospital and doctors, this settlement was with the county and city. According to another source

"Eckert still has pending suits against a deputy district attorney who signed off on the intrusive search warrant, the doctors who performed the search and the Gila Regional Medical Center, the facility that hosted the exams."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/n-m-man-settles-1-6...

Yet another great reason to end drug prohibition.

The cops and the doctors perpetrating the rape should also be held personally liable in civil and criminal court.

Inequality exacerbates this problem, but it is not the root cause. I have heard many stories of police abuse from middle class, White people.

It is only the ultra-rich (or ultra-connected) that the police are afraid of.

Kenneth Lay laughed all the way to the bank!

The root cause seems to be that police are not prosecuted for crimes committed while on duty.

I am little surprised that there was merely a financial settlement. This is not just an invasion of Mr Eckert's privacy but a matter of public concern. The law enforcement officials and doctors should have been fired too, well not just by fired but criminally booked as well. I am surprised this has not happened.

On a larger note, imagine that government tries to build a military base on a mountain behind your house. They use explosives to break bid rocks. One rock flies off and falls in your backyard killing your dog. Government pays you $1m as compensation. Does the matter end there ? Most certainly not. Instead government's negligence is a public concern. I think your neighbors should be allowed to demand that government disclose what security measures they have put in place to ensure that more rocks don't fly in air killing others.

I think in the above mentioned case it must be absolutely necessary that the cops and doctors should be booked and heavily penalized.

"Every man is innocent until proven broke."

I'd like to point out that YOU CAN BE LEGALLY RAPED if a cop suspects you have drugs and has probable cause (which can be anything really, from a dog barking to a previous history of drug use, to clenching your ass when being padded down).

Shocking but not overly surprising. However, I can't really imagine something like this happening in any western democracy other than the US (and maybe the UK).

are you nuts? this would never occur in the UK.

I recently watched a lecture by Philip Zimbardo (of Stanford prison experiment fame) about systems that creates such situations [1]. His example was the Abu Graib. It's quite long, but there is also a shorter Ted talk on the same subject.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpsVlY3QQc

I wonder if someone could comment on the validity of the contract between the hospital and the victim of the enemas.

For a contract to be valid both parties need consideration. Since the victim didn't consent to the enema or the other procedures how did he receive any consideration. I would argue that it's impossible to enforce this contract.

This sounds beyond outrageous to people not living in USA.

It's a good thing it didn't happen to some random European tourist.

Yes it's outrageous, but why compare this to Europe? Hidalgo County is right on the border, and if this would've happened just a few miles south (in Mexico) it wouldn't be too far out of the ordinary. Some parts of the US seem to operate a lot more like our neighbor to the south than like the ones across the pond.

Similar idiocy does happen to European tourists/visitors.

Google "John Kristoffer Larsgard" for an AG's narrative that makes no sense, yet made it all the way to court and a conviction. (Astroturfing on both sides - look for the facts.)

For me, the US is indefinitely off my itineraries, both private and business. I've lived there for years, and I liked it, but the risk of becoming a pawn in some elected law enforcement official's scramble for reelection - or pissing off the wrong police officer - carries too much risk.

For everybody wondering about the lack of criminal charges, I'll bet a Coke that Nicholas Kristof writes a follow-up column within a month about that topic. He's got himself a hot-button subject and he knows it.

Sadistic police brutality is a worldwide phenomenon, but the hospital billing the victim? On the same level of psychopathic behaviour if you ask me. Would the billing even be considered outside the US?

The sooner all cops shifts are "GoPro'd" for lack of a real product the better. Tech has reached a point where we can archive a shifts worth of video for atleast 6 months.

This is slightly interesting but I wonder what is the relevance to Hacker News?

Heh. Just watched Beavis and Butt-Head Do America recently.

"The stolen biological weapon attracts the attention of the ATF, headed by Agent Flemming who orders a body cavity search on everyone he encounters"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_Butt-Head_Do_Americ...

> But the authorities, hospital and doctors all refused to comment, and, a few days ago, the city and county settled the lawsuit by paying Eckert $1.6 million.

Holy fuck people are stupid. $1.6 million is not nearly enough. I would be smashing up the cops' shit if they did this to me.

The phrase "not arrested" suggests that the suspect almost hoped for a chance to sue the police. Hard to blame him, when the police is displaying this amount of stupidity, lack of judgement or empathy.

Our righteous indignation seems a little shrill here.

The fact that he was awarded $1.6M is being glossed over -- clearly this was not, in hindsight, a reasonable procedure, and everyone recognizes it.

>The fact that he was awarded $1.6M is being glossed over

It's being glossed over because it's irrelevant to the discussion.

>this was not, in hindsight, a reasonable procedure

In hindsight? Are you seriously implying that it was reasonable at the time?

>Our righteous indignation seems a little shrill here.

Interesting. What tone should be taken in a discussion condemning an act of rape in order to avoid sounding shrill?

The monetary settlement should be just a start. Does the doctor involved still have a license to practice medicine? He shouldn't. Do the nurses and techs involved still have jobs? They should be subject to extreme disciplinary measures at the very least. Are the cops still on the force? They shouldn't be, as they are obviously unsuitable for the job. Is the judge who authorized the warrant still on the bench?

No, there's plenty of room for indignation.

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