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Comment by swehner | Hacker News Reader

Seems to have been settled. Found this:

Mention of "Doe v. El Paso County Hospital District, et al. No. 3:13-cv-00406 (WD Tex., filed Dec. 18, 2013)" at this blog, https://holdcbpaccountable.org/category/texas/ links to "Texas Hospital Reaches $1.1 Million Settlement" http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2014/07/0... (July 2014)

In particular, "Texas Tech University, which operates a medical school campus at the hospital [will pay] $500,000."

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And that's good and fine, on the civil side in the specific suit against the hospital.

Unfortunately, there are some criminal statutes that appear to have been violated by all concerned and some professional medical codes that have been violated by individual doctors; There is tampering with federal evidence (prompting the dog) in order to falsify probable cause. There is also the matter of precedential rulings associated with the guidance given border control officers on how far to go.

Of five matters of concern, the least pressing to us has been settled out of court without the benefit of an enjoiner against future repetition of the abuses by the hospital (in re: rules that permit participation in a kidnapping and rape of a captive). My expectation is that a $1M reward is not especially protective to the rest of us, when it's our turn to be kidnapped and raped as some kind of practice exercise of authority. I am less worried about the hospital than the men with guns and dogs, however the fact that the hospital has a goddamned specialized billing procedure associated with torture of unwilling captives of a rogue federal agency worries me.

Justice has not been done yet; Generally by my limited understanding a Bivens Action is only filed when justice is limited in availability by a whole arm of the government who are denying any wrongdoing and prosecutors who are refusing to operate in accordance with their duties to the people.

The solution quite simple: when the suspect had evidence of wrongdoing (drugs, etc), they pay for the cost of the procedure.

When the suspect does not have evidence of a crime, they should be reimbursed. I am all right with a legitimate search warrant giving law enforcement the right to tear my house inside and out, but after it is established that they found nothing, I can bill them for the clean-up, as well as any lost time from work.

To me the biggest problem with law enforcement today is that there is no punishment for being wrong, even when lives and families can be shredded in the process. We have malpractice insurance for doctors, why not cops?

Politics, mainly. Professional liability insurance would help solve a lot of the problems (if not entirely, then at least somewhat), but I can't think of a single policy police unions would fight more. And once they roped in other public-sector unions to help them fight (in the name of solidarity, of course), it'd quickly turn into a quagmire of epic proportions. There's an effort to get such a measure on the ballot in Minnesota, but success is unlikely [0].

0. https://ballotpedia.org/City_of_Minneapolis_Police_Brutality...

Erm, why should any suspect ever be paying for a procedure they did not order nor consent to?

"Don't fight it son. Confess quickly! If you hold out too long you could jeopardize your credit rating."

Or "go ahead and search me. You'll find nothing but a bill for my next vacation."

In the context of TFA this is more like being paid for work as a sub.

Also the cops and doctors who were committing unethical acts as part of this scam should be disciplined and/or removed from duty.

Am I too far off base?

I don't know much about medical sonography but they should be able to detect something without invasive searching.

They need a warrant for anything more than a surface check, period. The core of the problem is abuse of authority without a warrant.

Fines to the government and hospital aren't enough to prevent the abuse. The abusers need to be disciplined.

Just take a cut of the lawsuit damages out of the police pension pool. You would be surprised how quickly things can change when one's retirement is at stake.

Why punish the other officers? Wouldn't it make more sense to put the offending LEO in jail and/or fire him/her?

Because much of the most egregious police misconduct isn't the cause of the rare bad apple alone, it's the blue wall of silence that has officers looking out for each other more than the general public. If everyone suffers, even a small amount, the tolerance for misconduct will plummet.

No, it hasn't been "settled."

It won't be until the perpetrators have been held responsible for the crime they committed: 2 counts of aggregated sexual assault (for the forced voyeuristic inspection of her lower parts, and the forced bowel movement), and a further account forced sodomy with a foreign object. That means jail time; lifelong bans from participation in any form of law enforcement (or private security detail); and of course, a very prominent place on local and national sex offender registries (which I'm normally against -- but I make an exception for egregious acts of sexual assault and indecency enacted by government officials).

Fines? Against an institution? That's just a number on some spreadsheet somewhere.

You have a point there -- the problem goes beyond the victim of this case.

Happened in Albuquerque too.

An earlier HN story is here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7123442

The follow up articles are here:

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/16/nation/la-na-nn-new-...

The poor guy one $1.6 million - and I'm not saying this sarcastically. I was absolutely outraged what they did to him, it was tantamount to rape.

Disturbingly, the police officers who forced the illegal probe are still employed:

https://www.rt.com/usa/163428-nm-cops-jobs-anal-probes/

These officers should have been thrown into jail, and each one of the medical staff who participated struck off.

Wow. So in both cases, money was squeezed out of somewhere that should have been providing actual services (hospitals), but the actual thugs had little to no consequences, at least not yet. Sad.

These situations need to be taken as criminal acts. There should be jail time, and real and direct consequences for those who take part.

If people who do these things can do them with impunity, then they are likely to do them again and again. And the system, already teetering on the brink, will go right over.

"The hospital said it will pay $125,000, its insurance carrier $475,000 and Texas Tech University, which operates a medical school campus at the hospital, $500,000."

If I understand correctly, this means the hospital and affiliated entities have settled for a total of $1.1M. AFAICT the CBP & agents are still defending.

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