Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Further to Mark Steyn's Column "The Drift Toward Despotism": WTF Is Wrong With New Mexico Police?

Did you all read Mark Steyn's fine column last week?

It was called The Drift Toward Despotism.

He noted:

"David Eckert was pulled over by police in Deming, N.M., for failing to come to a complete halt at a stop sign in the Walmart parking lot. He was asked to step out of the vehicle, and waited on the sidewalk."

"Officers decided that they didn’t like the tight clench of his buttocks, a subject on which New Mexico’s constabulary is apparently expert, and determined that it was because he had illegal drugs secreted therein. So they arrested him, and took him to Gila Regional Medical Center in neighboring Hidalgo County, where Mr. Eckert was forced to undergo two abdominal X-rays, two rectal probes, three enemas, and defecate thrice in front of medical staff and representatives of two law-enforcement agencies, before being sedated and subjected to a colonoscopy — all procedures performed against his will and without a valid warrant."

"Gila Regional Medical Center subsequently sent Mr. Eckert a bill for $6,000."

And now, a third person has come forward in New Mexico alleging that she was subjected to anal and vaginal 'probes' for drugs. 

It's not a pretty story.

"An unnamed woman has become the latest person to come forward and claim she was physically abused by New Mexican authorities after being forced to undergo invasive surgery to prove she wasn’t carrying drugs."

"The latest alleged victim claims she was sexually assaulted and that federal agents and medical staff exceeded their authority to search for drugs she didn’t have.The woman was stopped by police in El Paso, Texas, after a drug-sniffing dog indicated that she might have drugs."

"Police then strip-searched her and allegedly assault her by sticking their fingers into her vagina."

"Medical personnel probed her anus and vagina, her lawyer Laura Schaur Ives of the New Mexico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union told KOB4."

"They then did a cavity search and they probed her vagina and her anus, they described in the medical records as bi-manual - two-handed,’ she said. 

 "Again, they found nothing."
 
"When the on-site search failed to turn up any drugs, police took the woman to University Medical Center of El Paso. There, she was given an X-ray, cat scan and full body search."

To serve, protect and vaginally and anally probe? 

Is the road to despotism paved with KY jelly and surgical gloves, pavement laid by the men and women in blue-with guns and badges? 

As Steyn noted last week: 

"...tyranny is always capricious, and the willingness of police and compliant doctors and nurses to go along with it ought to disturb a supposedly free people, no matter how comparatively rare it may seem."