{"id":10283,"date":"2014-01-26T10:48:16","date_gmt":"2014-01-26T10:45:11","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-26T10:45:11","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=10283","title":{"rendered":"NYT: Sunday Review: 3 Enemas Later, Still No Drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NYT: Sunday Review: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/01\/26\/opinion\/sunday\/kristof-3-enemas-later-still-no-drugs.html?ref=todayspaper&amp;_r=0\">3 Enemas Later, Still No Drugs<\/a> by Nicholas Kristof:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>IF you think that protests about overzealous law enforcement are over the top, listen to what unfolded when the police suspected that David Eckert, 54, was hiding drugs in his rectum.<\/p>\n<p>Eckert is a shy junk dealer struggling to get by in Hidalgo County, N.M. He lives a working-class life, drives a 16-year-old pickup and was convicted in 2008 of methamphetamine possession.<\/p>\n<p>Police officers, suspecting he might still be involved in drugs, asked him to step out of his pickup early last year after stopping him for a supposed traffic violation. No drugs or weapons were found on Eckert or in his truck, but a police dog showed interest in the vehicle and an officer wrote that Eckert\u2019s posture was \u201cerect and he kept his legs together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That led the police to speculate that he might be hiding drugs internally, so they took him in handcuffs to a nearby hospital emergency room and asked the doctor, Adam Ash, to conduct a forcible search of his rectum. Dr. Ash refused, saying it would be unethical.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019t actually been arrested. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>When I came across this case, it seemed far-fetched to me \u2014 more like rape than law enforcement. 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=10283\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}