DEA Agents Wrongly Jailed Student for 5 Days Without Food or Water Until He Had to Drink Own Urine; Nobody Fired

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Two years ago, I highlighted the case of Daniel Chong, a California student who was thrown in a holding cell and forgotten about for 5 days without food or water. His situation became so desperate, he was forced to drink his own urine in order to survive. The post was titled, Student Forgotten in California Jail Cell by the DEA for 5 Days Without Food or Water. Here’s an excerpt:

While a cash payout should be part of any sort of justice for Daniel, I wonder if any of the individuals responsible for this will be held accountable? That to me is the key point. Just as bankers simply pay a fine for egregious crimes that represent only a small part of their profit from the activity (but almost never face criminal charges), so too it seems the police and government bureaucrats almost never face serious repercussions for any their actions, no matter how heinous or unconstitutional. 

Well wonder no more. The jury is out, and all the DEA agents involved received a slap on the wrist. A few days of suspension without pay, but nobody fired. From the LA Times:

Federal agents responsible for leaving a 23-year-old UC San Diego engineering student in a holding cell for five days without food or water received only reprimands or short suspensions from the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to the Justice Department.

Daniel Chong was swept up in a 2012 DEA raid on his friends’ house, where he had gone to smoke marijuana. After an interrogation, he was told he would be released.

But the agents responsible forgot about him, according to a Department of Justice Office of Inspector General report last summer, leaving him to drink his own urine to stave off dehydration.

The Inspector General Report said that three DEA agents and a supervisor bore primary responsibility for Chong’s mistreatment and that the DEA San Diego Field Division lacked procedures to keep track of detainees. They were not named in the report.

The Department of Justice letter said that DEA officials forwarded a report on the incident to a disciplinary board, the Board of Professional Conduct, without conducting its own investigation. The board issued four reprimands to DEA agents and a suspension without pay for five days to another. The supervisor in charge at the time was given a seven-day suspension.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If you have a criminal mind and lack ethics, yet aren’t sharp enough to be a TBTF banker, the best place to look for employment is within a Federal agency. You can pretty much engage in unlimited criminality without any repercussions. The DEA and TSA may provide particularly good opportunities for unbridled shadiness. Recall:

DEA Agents Caught Having Drug Cartel Funded Prostitute Sex Parties Received Slap on the Wrist; None Fired

TSA Agents Caught Gaming System so Male Screener Could Grope Attractive Passengers; No Criminal Charges Filed

Apparently it’s impossible to be fired from the DEA. 

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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10 thoughts on “DEA Agents Wrongly Jailed Student for 5 Days Without Food or Water Until He Had to Drink Own Urine; Nobody Fired”

  1. Michael,

    I don’t remember if I said it before, but thank you for your articles! I read them regularly and sometimes I post links to your articles on other internet-forums. LibertyBlitzkrieg is one of my favorite real-news-sites and I think your articles are not only great, but also very much needed in the world we presently face. So thank you for that!

    That said, less than half a year ago I bought a laptop of about 1000 euro, so it’s no old barrel. I don’t know exactly when it started, but everything on my laptop slows down DRAMATICALLY when I now use it to visit LibertyBlitzkrieg. If I would have to guess I think it’s the multitude of advertisements on your website. I don’t mind the advertisements per se, and I respect the monetary reason for putting them on. But I just cannot handle this amount of slow-down, and it only happens when I visit your site. Unfortunately this will force me to visit your site much less frequently. I don’t know, maybe it’s some technical thing on my side, but in either case: the effect is clear. IF most people experiences this like I do, then I can image that it has a drastically negative effect on the number of visits to your site and the number of comments you get. Maybe other commenters can comment on this. In any case: I just thought you should know.

    Thank you again for your articles and kind regards,
    Mason

    Reply
    • Can you tell me what country you are visiting the site from? I have heard of this issue from one other person from the EU, but that’s it.

      As far as advertisements, it’s very unlikely to be that. I only run two third party programs, while most of sites run more than that.

      Sorry you are having trouble loading the site. It doesn’t slow down my laptop when I am on it, and I have only heard of this problem from one other person, and he was also in the EU.

    • Thank you for your response. I’m visiting from the Netherlands.
      Was the other person visiting from the same country?

  2. I have just tried your suggestion and an ad-blocker does seem to help, at least at this moment. So the problem seems to be solved. So thanks for the tip!

    Reply
  3. The more I see We The People silently accept, the more I wonder if a tipping point even exists anymore. No one gets upset about much of anything anymore…

    Reply

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