NOT TO GET ALL ANAL, BUT…

There was much furor this past week about a case in which police officers became suspicious that a man they’d stopped had stuffed drugs up his rectum. So, they got a warrant which led to a medical search that began with a cavity search and progressed to X-ray, multiple enemas, and finally a colonoscopy (all in a hospital environment). Turned out he didn’t have any drugs after all.  Across the country, cries of jack-booted thuggery were excreted, and the involved officers (and medicos) became the butt of many inflamed and flatulent complaints. Many wanted to see the officers jammed up.

I don’t want to get all anal about this, but it was pretty crappy for everyone to dump on the cops before hearing their side.  It turns out that the officers in question had reason to believe their suspect had done this before:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/11/07/new-details-emerge-about-new-mexico-man-at-center-of-police-departments-anal-probing-controversy/

If we can get serious for a minute, it’s well known in law enforcement that drug mules often hide their contraband in their rectums, just as some will swallow the baggie or condom full of cocaine when police approach.  There are numerous cases where these things have ruptured inside one or the other end of the alimentary canal, resulting in the untimely death of the suspect.  The cops are responsible for the person in their custody, even if that “custody” merely takes the form of investigative detention.  Thus, in all seriousness, they had a duty to, uh, probe the matter more deeply.

I hope this little tour through the bowels of legal responsibilities serves as a reminder to always get the other guy’s side of the story before trying to stuff a complaint up his nether regions. I will now clench this blog entry tightly shut, in hopes that, in hind-sight, we’ve gotten to the bottom of things.

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