Unless You Like Traffic Stops With Cartman-Style Anal Probes, Do Not Roll Through Stop Signs In New Mexico

We'll just warn you up front: Please clear the room of breakables before reading -- this is one of those stories where you're going to want to throw things.

Following a January traffic stop, Sheriff's deputies, police officers, and hospital personnel in Deming, New Mexico all joined together to (ALLEGEDLY) inflict what became an hours-long torture session on a man they suspected was smuggling narcotics. A judge issued a warrant for a cavity search, but what followed was the kind of nightmare that we're supposed to think only happens in bad horror movies and conspiracy-theory emails. For chrissakes, law enforcement, how are we supposed to mock people like Basil Marceaux and his weird obsession with "slavery at traffic stops" when you go and act like the goddamn 1977 Paraguayan Secret Police All-Stars?

Albuquerque station KOB details the horror story: On January 2, 2013, David Eckert was pulled over for not making a complete stop at a stop sign as he pulled out of a Deming, New Mexico, Wal-Mart. The officers asked him to get out of his vehicle (for rolling through a stop sign??) and believed that he was walking with his butt clenched, so they got a search warrant to allow an anal cavity search. Staff at the first hospital they took him to, in Deming, refused to do the search, saying it was "unethical" (GOOD CALL). So then the cops dragged Eckert to Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, where staff were much more helpful. (And now our traditional reader service: This is where you'll want to set down any heavy hurlable objects that might go straight through your computer monitor):

While there, Eckert was subjected to repeated and humiliating forced medical procedures. A review of Eckert's medical records, which he released to KOB, and details in the lawsuit show the following happened:

1. Eckert's abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.

2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert's anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.

4. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

5. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

6. Doctors penetrated Eckert's anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.

7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.

8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert's anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.

Throughout this ordeal, Eckert protested and never gave doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center consent to perform any of these medical procedures.

Oh, and a couple of kickers: The search warrant was valid only in Luna County, where Eckert was arrested. The hospital in Silver City is in Hidalgo County, so even if narcotics had been found, they'd be inadmissible as evidence. And the warrant had also expired by the time the search was done. (As if any of this would be justified if they had found drugs.) 

And just for laughs, the hospital has billed Eckert for its services, and is threatening to take him to collections. Just about the only good thing in the whole horror show is that Eckert is suing the City of Deming, the hospital, the district attorney, and all of the law enforcement officers and doctors involved.

We really wish we had a joke here; not even the prospect of wingnuts blaming Obama for this is especially funny.

Thank goodness we can at least make fun of the doofus reporter at 2: 18 below, stepping back and forth over an invisible county line -- seeing a local reporter acting like an idiot is such a comforting reminder of normality. This is still Our America after all.

[ KOB4-TV via tip from "TS"]