A driver who failed to stop at a Walmart parking lot stop sign endured a lot more than just an embarrassing chat with the cops and a hefty ticket. The Deming, New Mexico, the police officers who pulled him over, claimed that he was “clenching his buttocks” in a suspicious fashion, so they arrested him, obtained a search warrant, and forced him to submit to an anal probe and colonoscopy to determine if he was hiding illegal drugs. No drugs were found.
In November 2013, police officers in Tullytown, Pennsylvania, arrested a 14-year-old boy on charges of shoplifting at a local Walmart. The boy’s mother alleges that the cops viciously beat her son, leaving him with a broken nose and swollen eyes. She said the officers also used a Taser on the boy’s face.
In Humboldt County, California, police officers applied pepper spray directly on the eyes of hand-cuffed and immobilized nonviolent anti-logging protestors. Photographs of the officers swabbing the eyes of the writhing young people with the chemical agent made headlines around the globe. A similar incident of officers in Davis, California, pepper spraying university student protestors at close range led to international outrage and a class action lawsuit.
And, in 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant was killed by a transit police officer who had him pinned to the ground, face-down, in an Oakland, California, rail station, a tragedy depicted in the 2013 movie, Fruitvale.
Constitutional Implications Given that the unique and broad powers wielded by police officers are conferred by the state, police officers are essentially acting on behalf of the government. The U.S. Constitution defines the limits of governmental powers.