Just not good enough.
Summary executions all around.
Posted on 05/03/2012 5:06:17 AM PDT by Shane
SAN DIEGO — A California engineering student says he was left alone in a federal holding cell for four days with no food or water, apparently forgotten by the federal drug agents who detained him.
Daniel Chong, a senior at the University of California at San Diego, said he was swept up in a Drug Enforcement Administration raid near campus and was taken to a detention facility. After questioning, he was told he would be released.
Then the DEA left him locked inside a 5-by-10-foot windowless cell.
He screamed. He kicked madly at the door. He cried like a baby.
Soon, nothing made sense, said Chong, 23. He could hear agents chatting among themselves on the other side of the heavy door and other detainees coming and going from holding tanks nearby.
Days crawled by. No food. No water. No bathroom. He remembers biting his eyeglasses and using the broken shards to scrawl a note onto his left arm.
"Sorry Mom," he tried to write. He stopped after the "S,'' too weak to continue.
On Wednesday, the top federal drug agent in San Diego issued an apology.
"I am deeply troubled by the incident that occurred here last week," the statement said, without mentioning Chong by name. "I extend my deepest apologies to the young man and want to express that this event is not indicative of the high standards that I hold my employees to. I have personally ordered an extensive review of our policies and procedures," said the statement attributed to William R. Sherman, acting special agent in charge.
The DEA acknowledged Monday that agents had left someone in a cell after a raid on April 21 — until they found him and had to call paramedics. The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department said that medical call came on April 25.
At the raid, DEA officials said, they apprehended nine suspects and netted 18,000 ecstasy pills, three weapons and other drugs.
"Seven suspects were brought to county detention after processing, one was released and the individual in question was accidentally left in one of the cells," spokeswoman Amy Roderick said.
Chong told the Associated Press the ordeal began hours after he went to some friends' house on April 20 to get high. Early the next morning, drug agents executing a search warrant burst through the door and eventually took nine people into custody.
Chong said he was handcuffed and left in a holding cell for about four hours. He was then moved to an interview room, where he was told he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and would be released shortly. One agent even promised to drive him home.
He was returned to a holding cell to await his release. The door swung closed sometime April 21 and didn't open again until April 25. Chong said he was in one of the middle cells, with no toilet, no water.
He said he urinated on the cell's only furniture — a metal bench — to be able to drink the fluid. He stacked a blanket, his pants and shoes on top of the bench to try to climb up and trigger a fire sprinkler on the ceiling, but failed.
The lights went out at one point and stayed off for several days, he said. All the while, Chong said, he could hear occasional footsteps and doors opening and closing, even from the cell next door.
He tried everything he could think of to get someone's attention. He lay on the floor and squinted through a tiny crack beneath the door. He could see shadows and hear muffled voices. No one came.
"It's impossible to describe hallucinations like these," he said. "I was completely insane."
In utter confusion, Chong said, he ate some of the broken glass he had used to slice his arm. He also ingested a white powdery substance the DEA said had been left in the cell inadvertently.
Suddenly, the door swung open. Chong, badly dehydrated, cramped and likely hours from death, said it took him some time to realize he was being saved.
San Diego Fire-Rescue said paramedics were summoned to the center to transport a patient who was suspected of ingesting a white powder substance. The DEA said the substance tested positive for methamphetamine.
Chong was rushed to a nearby hospital where he spent five more days recovering from problems including kidney failure, dehydration and a perforated esophagus that was the result of swallowing the broken glass.
He was not charged with any crimes. In the statement Monday, the DEA defended the raid and said the unidentified suspect was at the house to use drugs. Chong admitted smoking marijuana but said he did not know of ecstasy or weapons at the home.
Chong's attorneys filed a $20 million claim against the DEA on Wednesday, saying his treatment constitutes torture under U.S. and international law.
The five-page notice, a precursor to a lawsuit, cites damages for pain and suffering, future medical and psychiatric treatment and loss of future earnings.
"He nearly died," said Chong's lawyer, Eugene Iredale. "If he had been there another 12 to 24 hours, he probably would have died."
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
You are correct. Yes it can. A person is in serious trouble at 72 hours without water and is on the knife edge of survival after that. Even if they don’t die, serious long-term effects can ensue.
You don’t care if a government abuses the constitutional rights of a fellow citizen?
It always starts with the “undesireables”—then it moves up to “respectable” citizens.
That could be you, one day.
But you may not be “forgotten” for four days. You may be “remembered” a month or two down the line.
Your crime?
You owned a gun.
You disagreed with Der Fuhrer Obama publicly.
You voted for the “wrong” politician.
You read a conservative book (”extremist literature”).
This isn’t about the kid doing drugs; this is about the government seeing what we, the American people, will tolerate being done to them without due process.
Just not good enough.
Summary executions all around.
What narrative? If the facts are not: Left in a cell for five days without food, water, and no charges. Then why the he’ll was he apologized to by the supervising DEA agent. What am I missing? He left in the cell with an “unknown” white powder?
These are the known facts and these facts are not disputed by the supervising agent.
So what narrative am I missing?
So in your world it’s cool to pick up citizens, imprison them without charges for five days without food and water?
Don’t get yourself invested in this one. This story is a real stinker for the gubment.
It is entirely true this young man may have been dehydrated to the point of near death.
Cut him some slack. He did not deserve this to happen and we know the offices of the government covers up everything they can. So it is good to bring this incident to the public’s attention. It is the way to get out any information as to the poor operations in some departments.
Of course not. I’m a professional and work on buildings all over the world.
We all know potheads are complete losers who never leave mommy’s basement and fill the holes in their brains with taco bell.
“You must lead a rough life; In my world, being deprived of food and water for four days is certainly torture, and being forced to drink your own urine is certainly denigrating. And I have been on both ends of military survival training, so I think I can speak from personal experience.”
Same here.
The problem here on my part, and freely admitted is I am trying to find the relevance when looking at people like Gilad Shalit and Daniel Pearl who were beaten within an inch of their lives, starved, deprived of water and in the case of Pearl, decapitated as what torture is.
This was depraved indifference on the part of the DEA and yes, justice for this aggregious crime against a citizen of the US should be handed out to the idiots who did this.
40 days? Where in the world did you read 40 days?
Just how did I answer my own question? Bush is no longer president. Obama signed the most recent law. I disagree with the laws content. American citizens are entitled to due process. Either post something that makes sense or go away.
“So it is good to bring this incident to the public’s attention. It is the way to get out any information as to the poor operations in some departments. “
I agree. I just didn’t like the way the media presented this.
I agree with you.
Why did we have to pass a Constitutional Amendmend to ban alcohol, but some executive orders and some bills through congress and Presto Bingo there is an out and out war on drugs that was never oficcially declared an actual “War”.
Because since the early 1900’s the constitution has been watered down so much it is almost meaningless....
They had to use a constiutional amendment BECAUSE they simply couldn’t have passed a bill through congress and got the president’s signature BECAUSE the “War on Drugs” is inherently Un-constitutional as it is an abuse of federal power in relation to the average citizen.
It was only through the twisted liberal logic of a “welfare state” that they were able to justify the “War on Drugs” for the “Good of Society” since the progessive playbook was to make Government “responsible” for the “good of society”.
Also forgot to mention that I think that if states want to ban drugs in the same way they have “dry counties” and “dry states” then by all means it is up to the states to do so.
Broken glass and meth came from him shoving his stash and his glass pipe in bum, then trying to eat the evidence later. Sounds a lot more plausible than some white powdery substance "hanging out" in a cell, and accidently ingesting broken glass.
Why don’t you feel outraged? Because there’s something wrong with you ? Something broken inside?
Probably...
That's not enough.
When I heard of this case there was only one question that neede to be asked in court. How much does he want? Give him a blank cheque.
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