The story of Tunde Clement's arrest and search(perhaps state-sanctioned rape is more fitting term) by the Albany Sheriff's department in 2006 is an important complement to the Gates story. It is also perhaps more revealing of the state of civil rights in the US if you are poor, if you are black, if you are presumed guilty, and if you encounter the wrong law enforcement officials. And in the climate of the War on Drugs and War on Terror.
"ALBANY -- Two years ago, Tunde Clement stepped off a bus at the city's main terminal downtown.
Clement, a black man, was carrying a backpack and coming from New York City. That may have been enough to pique the interest of undercover sheriff's investigators scanning the crowd with their eyes.
They cornered Clement and began peppering him with questions.
He was quickly handcuffed and falsely arrested. He was taken to a station to be strip-searched and then to a hospital, where doctors forcibly sedated him with a cocktail of powerful drugs, including one that clouded his memory of the incident.
A camera was inserted in his rectum, he was forced to vomit and his blood and urine were tested for drugs and alcohol. Scans of his digestive system were performed using X-ray machines, according to hospital records obtained by the Times Union.
The search, conducted without a search warrant, came up empty."
Clement's experience indicates that there is a limit to the common wisdom, expressed so frequently in response to the Gates story, of polite compliance during encounters with the police.
Clement did just receive a $125,000 out-of-court settlement (although that seems low IMHO). $65,000 of that came from the hospital that performed the sedation and search without consent; the hospital then billed Clement $6,792 for the unwelcome procedures. However neither the Hospital or the Albany Sheriff's department admitted wrong doing. They conflated their suspicion of internal smuggling with fear for the suspect's life, at least in lawyer's statements.
Such stories provide the national context for Gates' choice to loudly condemn what he perceived as an incident of police profiling in progress. I think that required some measure of bravery, and I actually appreciate any pedagogical intent he might have had. But a disturbing subtext to this "debate" is that it is a prominent national story only because of Gates' status as a professor at an elite institution. Most of the editorials I have seen on the topic offer additional stories along the lines of "wealthy, successful and black man treated unfairly by police." Substitute poor for wealthy and successful and such stories get less coverage than "Dog bites Man."
This particular story hasn't received coverage by the New York Times or really any press beyond Albany, although the AP does have a blurb about the case and the settlement. Personally, I'm shocked that, against their will, citizens are drugged, forced to vomit, and have camera's inserted in their asses AT ALL, much less on the basis of such weak suspicion, and I find it highly news and debate worthy.
Does anyone have an idea of how common these kinds of practices are, both on the borders and within the US? Am I right to suspect that there is a racial pattern to the administration of such searches?