DEA leaves person in holding cell for 5 days,no provisions

[Comrade Tortoise]

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/d ... 58275.html

Daniel Chong, the UC San Diego student who was left in a Drug Enforcement Administration holding cell for nearly five days, said the time spent in his cell was a life-altering experience.

The 23-year-old spoke with NBCSanDiego and said he was increasingly worried throughout the days he spent in a 5 ft. by 10 ft. cell, where he could not spread his arms out wide.

“They never came back, ignored all my cries and I still don’t know what happened,” he said. “I’m not sure how they could forget me.”

As NBCSanDiego was first to report Saturday, the DEA confirmed its agents were investigating an incident in which a suspect, arrested Saturday, April 21, was detained at their office for several days and allegedly forgotten about.

Chong said he was at a friend’s house in University City celebrating 4/20, a day many marijuana users set aside to smoke, when agents came inside and raided the residence. Chong was then taken to the DEA office in Kearny Mesa.

He said agents questioned him, and then told him he could go home. One agent even offered him a ride, Chong said. No criminal charges were filed against him.

But Chong did not go home that night. Instead, he was placed in a cell for five days without any human contact and was not given food or drink. In his desperation, he said he was forced to drink his own urine.

“I had to do what I had to do to survive….I hallucinated by the third day,” Chong said. “I was completely insane.”

Chong said he lost roughly 15 pounds during the time he was alone. His lawyer confirmed that Chong ingested a powdery substance found inside the cell. Later testing revealed the substance was methamphetamine.

After days of being ignored, Chong said he tried to take his own life by breaking the glass from his spectacles with his teeth and then attempting to carve “Sorry mom,” on his arm. He said nurses also found pieces of glass in his throat, which led him to believe he ingested the pieces purposefully.

Chong said he could hear DEA employees and people in neighboring cells. He screamed to let them know he was there, but no one replied. He kicked the door, but no one came to get him.
By the time DEA officers found Chong in his cell Wednesday morning Chong was completely incoherent, said Iredale.

“I didn’t think I would come out,” Chong said.

He said when employees discovered him in the cell that they looked confused and nervous. A DEA employee rode with him to the hospital, where they paid for Chong’s visit.

He spent three days in the intensive care unit at Sharp Hospital and his kidneys were close to failing.

Chong and his lawyer spoke to the media on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the claim they will file with the federal court system on Wednesday.

“He was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” said his lawyer Gene Iredale, who compared Chong’s experience to the torture suffered by inmates at in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq

The DEA has not apologized to Chong, said Iredale.

The incident also caused Chong to miss his midterms at UCSD. He said he does not know if he will return to school, as his perspective on life has changed since his isolation.

San Diego defense attorney Gretchen Von Helms said the victim could get millions if he files a lawsuit.

"In all my years of practice I've never heard of the DEA or any Federal government employee simply forgetting about someone that they have in their care," she said.

"There has to be repercussions if people do not follow the safety and the care when they have a human being in their custody."

The Drug Enforcement Administration has issued an apology to Chong.

DEA San Diego Acting Special Agent-In-Charge William R. Sherman says in a statement Wednesday that he was troubled by the treatment of Daniel Chong and extends his "deepest apologies" to him.

Sherman says the event is not indicative of the high standards to which he holds his employees. He says he has personally ordered an extensive review of his office's policies and procedures.

The DEA says it is investigating why he was not released. US Senator Barbara Boxer and Congressman Darrell Issa each asked for further investigation Wednesday

[frigidmagi]

Oh, someone is getting fired! And deserves it.

Bluntly this doesn't sound like an intentional torture or extreme interrogation method. It sounds like bloody incompetence. Like someone stuck him in a cell (WHY? Who knows!) and forgot to fill out the paperwork. Everyone would have assumed that if he was in a cell, the forms were filed and therefore food and water would be delivered at the correct times.

Whoops.

Seriously, this boy should get more then an apology, they left him without food or water for 5 days! Someone should be getting an orange suit over this shit.

Sidenotes: Huh, if it's a 5 by 10 cell, then yes he can stretch out his arms, he just needs to face the correct way. It's a damn jail cell not a hotel room. While I agree there's alot of things wrong with our jail system (inmates should be safe from assault, murder and rape just to start with), making the jell cells bigger isn't on the list.

WHY THE FUCK ARE THERE METHAMPHETAMINES IN YOUR CELLS? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING DOWN THERE? This whole station needs to be investigated, they left a kid alone in a cell for 5 days and had a pile of fucking illegal drugs in one of their cells!

[Comrade Tortoise]

Sidenotes: Huh, if it's a 5 by 10 cell, then yes he can stretch out his arms, he just needs to face the correct way. It's a damn jail cell not a hotel room. While I agree there's alot of things wrong with our jail system (inmates should be safe from assault, murder and rape just to start with), making the jell cells bigger isn't on the list.

The cell is apparently 5 x 5 x 10, so it could be either 10 long or 10 high. It is not specified in the other bits I read. Either way, if he is over 5 feet tall, he cant spread his arms. The span between finger tips tends to be your height, or just a little longer (longer means you have something literally called Positive Ape Index). So even if it is 10 long by 5 wide, he can either stretch out his legs, or his arms. Not both.

Everyone would have assumed that if he was in a cell, the forms were filed and therefore food and water would be delivered at the correct times.

There are periodic checks and role calls of people in holding cells. And they are supposed to check all the cells in the block when they do checks so even if someone was not booked properly, someone should have noticed the extra person (he was brought in with 8 others). Plus, he was kicking on the door, screaming etc. So, the people responsible for the checks and booking did not do their jobs at all.

WHY THE FUCK ARE THERE METHAMPHETAMINES IN YOUR CELLS? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING DOWN THERE? This whole station needs to be investigated, they left a kid alone in a cell for 5 days and had a pile of fucking illegal drugs in one of their cells!

People hide their drugs in... places... and dump them while in the cell, combined with poor housekeeping?

Then the poor starving kid who has been reduced to drinking his own urine to avoid dehydration finds the white powder, and in his desperation for food decides that no matter what it is, it might as well be edible.

[Stofsk]

This is just about the worst thing I can imagine happening in prison. Utterly disgusting, and the people responsible should be prosecuted.

[Josh]

Yeah, definitely criminal negligence. I agree with Frigid that it was incompetence-derived, but we criminally prosecute for incompetence/negligence related offenses all the time.

More likely somebody will either get career-fucked or fired, though. Institutions protect their own.

[The Cleric]

$20 million lawsuit, as I've heard. Which, although I can see the justification because of what he went through, is absurd because it's straight tax payer money. There's no personal responsibility, just like with general law enforcement.

[Comrade Tortoise]

Update:

The incompetence gets worse. Apparently, there are multiple checks of all cells (regardless of whether or not there is supposed to be a prisoner in there) specifically to avoid this sort of thing, make sure people in solitary dont kill themselves etc. Every day, there were supposed to be 8 checks of all cells. Not just all cells supposed to contain prisoners, but all cells. These checks were not performed.

[Stofsk]

$20 million lawsuit, as I've heard. Which, although I can see the justification because of what he went through, is absurd because it's straight tax payer money. There's no personal responsibility, just like with general law enforcement.

The dollar figure is a bit high but honestly, this is the kind of thing where I'd side with the plaintiff. I'm also betting it's a strategy to get them to come to the table with a counter offer that's less than $20mil but still more than a couple mil. Seriously they nearly killed this guy, and as CT just posted it is becoming harder and harder to simply go 'lol incompetence' given that the procedures in place simply weren't followed (which, well, LOOKS like malfeasance rather than misfeasance).

[Josh]

Oh, I can fully believe that lazy assholes weren't performing the required checks. Unless they have something like the lock key system that logs a physical presence by a guard, it's entirely plausible that pencilwhipping the checklist/logs is routine procedure. That sort of shit goes on all over the place and usually keeps on until it gets somebody killed or seriously hurt, then they get serious about enforcing routine taskwork.