The Jack-Booted Thug(s) of the Week...

... are Sheriff James Campbell and Inspector John Burke of the Albany County, New York Sheriff's Department, as well as eight narcotics "investigators" who were under the command of Burke, for inflicting the following horrific treatment on a man who was doing nothing more than riding a bus while carrying a backpack:

"A man who was forcibly sedated so his body could be searched for drugs that were never found will receive $125,000 under an out-of-court settlement reached recently with Albany County and Albany Medical Center Hospital."

This is unfortunately not some kind of sick joke, but something that actually happened to an innocent person in March 2006.

According to the article, this particular sheriff's office used to have a quaint little policy (since discontinued roughly eight years ago, when the practice was forbidden by a judge) of boarding buses arriving from New York City, flashing their badges, and then performing "stop-and-frisks" of anyone who visibly reacted to their self-important strutting around.

Having seemingly not learned their lesson at all from their previous judicial smackdown, the deputies in question stopped a man named Tunde Clement as he disembarked from a bus on March 13, 2006. Solely because Clement was wearing a backpack, the narcotics "detectives" somehow psychically determined that he was for sure some kind of drug mule.

The "investigators" then used that magical determination (and only that magical determination) as cause to run a warrant check on Clement, which indeed came up positive (for a failure to appear charge from a nearby locality, though, not a drug crime). The "genius" deputies then decided that they had all the proof they needed that Clement was in fact a drug runner, and took him first to jail, then to a nearby hospital, in order to retrieve the physical evidence they were sure he possessed, by any means they thought necessary.

The only minor flaw in their commendable master plan was - Clement didn't have any drugs on (or in) him:

"While Clement was under [forcible] sedation, 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"

All without a search warrant or any medical evidence whatsoever of "imminent danger", such as occurs when a person has a severe, life-threatening reaction to a bag of drugs rupturing while inside them. The sheep-like doctors present at the hospital basically did whatever the thug sheriffs told them to.

Having found bupkis in their illegal search of every nook and cranny of Mr. Clement, the deputies then kicked him loose, but not before giving him a citation for resisting arrest, a ticket which was obviously later dismissed by a judge.

To make matters even more surreal, the local hospital subsequently sent the poor fellow a bill for what was done to him:

"The following month Clement received a $6,792 bill from Albany Med for the procedures. Hospital records indicate the final diagnosis as 'hemorrhoids.'"

In our view, the only "hemorrhoids" present were the ones with badges who subjected Mr. Clement to this nightmare without one scintilla of probable cause that he was, in fact, in possession of narcotics.

We think that Mr. Clement should have imaginatively proposed forgoing any monetary settlement in favor of one small act of fairness - having the sheriff and his merry band of serial rights-violators undergo the same process that they inflicted on him.

Note to self - no more bus rides to Albany to tour whatever there is to see in that burg. It's just not worth the hassle.