UCSD student caught smoking on 4/20, held for 5 days by DEA w/ no food or water

[OKcomputer]

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...l-i-was-forced-to-drink-my-own-urine#comments

Student left for days in DEA cell: I was forced to drink my own urine

By Sarah Grieco and Rory Devine, NBCSanDiego.com
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-foot by 10-foot 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.”
See video, read the full story at NBCSanDiego.com
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 Abu Ghraib.
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.
Student in DEA custody forgotten without food or water for days
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.
Watch the most-viewed videos on msnbc.com
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."

 

[HighlyEducatedScholar]

i read this earlier today and thought it was just terrible that they would treat someone like that. such carelessness on their parts.

 

[Vicki]

I also read this article. Just proves how corrupt and uncaring our gov't really is. Use a plant that God gave you, and we will torture you!

I also have to ask, why was there Meth powder on the floor of his cell???

**I didn't see the printed story in the first post, so I am copying and pasting it for people to read if they like.

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-foot by 10-foot 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.”

See video, read the full story at NBCSanDiego.com

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 Abu Ghraib.

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.


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."

 

[HighlyEducatedScholar]

they said that there was meth in the cell room because he found it in a blanket in the cell and ate it out of desperation from starving. im assuming it was a small amount of meth that some of the prisoners were trying to sneak around within the jail. smuggling within prisons actually happens a lot and prisoners fail drug tests all the time.

 

[SD_haze]

I'm about ten minutes from UCSD, so this feels extra spooky

Daniel Chong better get millions from a settlement

 

[Tea Party]

they said that there was meth in the cell room because he found it in a blanket in the cell and ate it out of desperation from starving. im assuming it was a small amount of meth that some of the prisoners were trying to sneak around within the jail. smuggling within prisons actually happens a lot and prisoners fail drug tests all the time.

I've heard that many are scared to go back to prison because you can easily get any drug you desire.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout...ms-left-cell-five-days-without-153200359.html

San Diego DEA agent Amy Roderick said earlier on Wednesday in a statement to Yahoo News that Chong was caught in a home raid on a "suspected MDMA distribution organization" that also netted several weapons, 18,000 MDMA ("ecstasy") pills, marijuana, and hallucinogenic mushrooms.


Who is stupid enough to party at a stash house?

 

[WatTyler]

Monumental fuck up. Imagine the fall out if he'd died?

Sad story, but this bit made me smile:

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.

 

[Elluzion]

This makes me sick. I just can't believe that people could do this, especially after telling him he was free to go. I can't imagine going 5 days without food or water. This kid better get a lot of $ ^ha yeah if he wins the lawsuit i'm sure he isn't going to want to go to school

 

[Tea Party]

He'll blow through that cash in no time.

 

[vorrange]

If there was such a serious suspicion, I guess that makes it right to let him starve for 5 days then..

There is a right to human dignity that keeps being ignored in the war on drugs that is just incomprehensible.

And also, the raid was in a university area with college students.. some moderation is advised and you shouldn't arrest someone just for being somewhere. It should take more than that to inflict that much damage in someone.
You go to Iraq with knowledge about iraqi society so you can better eliminate potential threats and inocent casualties, but you don't adopt the same type of measures in your own country with your own citizens.

It just revolts me the extent of damage the governments and police cause to inocents and people who are just with the wrong people at the wrong time in the name of security. In my point of view it is all about money and power. If it was about the people, things had to be different.

 

[Tea Party]

While what happened to this kid sucks, lets not forget his fuck up.

He went to a god damn pot smoking party at a narcotics stash house....

 

[Vicki]

While what happened to this kid sucks, lets not forget his fuck up.

He went to a god damn pot smoking party at a narcotics stash house....

And, that means he should have been treated this way? Geez, I thought we were still in America, and had SOME damn rights left! Yes, it was not bright (if he knew), but that does not give the DEA the right to do this kind of abuse.

 

[vorrange]

While what happened to this kid sucks, lets not forget his fuck up.

He went to a god damn pot smoking party at a narcotics stash house....

"Fuck up" .. "pot smoking party" .. "narcotics stash house" . You think like a fanatic, this is the same type of over reaction you see in the talibans when they talk about womens rights.

how about, he went to hang out with some of his friends in another friends house? And what if there was other drugs going around? Was he using them? Or did he know that it was a stash house?

Why do we have courts and trials when DEA just invades someones house, arrests everyone and assumes they are all criminals? This is utter nonsense!

 

[Tea Party]

ROFL I guess "fanatic" means avoiding people who sell hard drugs...

Excuse me, He was at a house that was targeted for suspected MDMA distribution organization. These things don't happen over night.

In college I knew the people not to associate with or the houses not to go to.

 

[Vicki]

ROFL I guess "fanatic" means avoiding people who sell hard drugs...

Excuse me, He was at a house that was targeted for suspected MDMA distribution organization. These things don't happen over night.

In college I knew the people not to associate with or the houses not to go to.

Nothing you will say can ever justify why this man was treated so badly, not now, not ever. Maybe you would rather not live in a democracy.

**Oh, and let's not forget, HE WAS NEVER EVEN CHARGED.

 

[vorrange]

Fanatic means assuming you know the reason the people are there and what they are doing there.

I am sure he did not know that the house had such a target, although he might know about the organization.

Still no reason to arrest someone without nothing else than being in a targeted MDMA distribution organization. And also, explain me how in the world is MDMA a hard drug?? And in case you assume anything, i never used MDMA.

My point is, people should be free to do whatever they want. You can die from pills, you can get high from pills. Yet, you don't see people having their houses raided because they had pills in the house or in their coat. Why? Because it is assumed that people use the pills out of necessity and in moderation.
And yet, almost everyone knows someone who got into a problem because of prescription pills.

If you have a wine cellar in your house, you will die if you drink all that alcohol in a few hours. You can sell it too, or have a bottle in your car and not get it confiscated.

But you cannot drive drunk, or work drunk, or drink too much otherwise you will die. And it has a big potential for abuse and addiction. But you can still drink a cup of wine over dinner, or a beer in the pub after work.

But it is "marijuana", or "MDMA" or "Psylocibin", then you are most certainly a criminal and if not, you must have serious problems with you, your approach to life and you are in all certainty unreliable and a potential menace to those around you. And why? I dunno really, it is a double standard that most people don't agree and don't understand.

The result is people like this dude or Abysmal here at FC, have to through such ordeals that are just incomprehensible.

 

[VapeXhaleCloudIsLEGENDARY]

This is some pretty intense stuff. I mean even under the circumstances it seems like this man wasn't treated with an oz of respect.

 

[Tea Party]

Fanatic means assuming you know the reason the people are there and what they are doing there.

Some people were there to party, some were there to move/stash work

I am sure he did not know that the house had such a target, although he might know about the organization.

If he even had an inkling as to what goes on with those people then he was stupid to go and party with them in what was most likely a reeking house.

Still no reason to arrest someone without nothing else than being in a targeted MDMA distribution organization. And also, explain me how in the world is MDMA a hard drug?? And in case you assume anything, i never used MDMA.

It's not like they only found a few pills.... Please mdma is not a soft drug.

My point is, people should be free to do whatever they want. You can die from pills, you can get high from pills. Yet, you don't see people having their houses raided because they had pills in the house or in their coat. Why? Because it is assumed that people use the pills out of necessity and in moderation.
And yet, almost everyone knows someone who got into a problem because of prescription pills.

People get popped all the time for selling prescription pills

If you have a wine cellar in your house, you will die if you drink all that alcohol in a few hours. You can sell it too, or have a bottle in your car and not get it confiscated.

If it is within reaching distance of you it better be sealed or you'll get a ticket for an open container

But you cannot drive drunk, or work drunk, or drink too much otherwise you will die. And it has a big potential for abuse and addiction. But you can still drink a cup of wine over dinner, or a beer in the pub after work.

See above post

But it is "marijuana", or "MDMA" or "Psylocibin", then you are most certainly a criminal and if not, you must have serious problems with you, your approach to life and you are in all certainty unreliable and a potential menace to those around you. And why? I dunno really, it is a double standard that most people don't agree and don't understand.

Why? Because more often than not people who abuse hard drugs are sketchy ass people who do not contribute to society in a positive manner.

Sorry, no sympathy here for people involved with cocaine, heroin, meth, pcp, or extacy .

There are many cities in america that will tolerate a little weed but that is where the line is drawn.

The result is people like this dude or Abysmal here at FC, have to through such ordeals that are just incomprehensible.

.

 

[Vicki]

Tea Party, in all the times I have read the Constitution, I did not see any disclaimers like this..."these rights may vary depending on your location, and may not always apply to you."

All your arguments are invalid and do not address the core issue here. Someones rights under the Constitution of the United States were grotesquely violated. It does not matter where he was, plain and simple.

 

[Tea Party]

I already said it was bad that this happened but he should have been more aware of his surroundings.

 

[Vicki]

I already said it was bad that this happened but he should have been more aware of his surroundings.

But, you also added that you have no sympathy for him because of where he was. Everyone should be concerned when things like this happen, no matter what the circumstances. If you keep condoning/justifying the government's unlawful actions, they will continue to do it. Maybe next time it will be you that is targeted, for some random situation. (not like the situation in this story)

 

[Tea Party]

I do my very best to keep myself out of situations that could lead to something like this

personal responsibility FTW

 

[Vicki]

I do my very best to keep myself out of situations that could lead to something like this

personal responsibility FTW

I said a "random" situation, something you have no control over whatsoever. This is why our rights are disappearing. People like you are passive when the government does bad things to its citizens, or are unsympathetic to the victims, or both.

 

[Tea Party]

Random like what like dui check points? good thing I don't drink and drive

lol I'm not passive at all about government wrong doing.

 

[Vicki]

lol I'm not passive at all about government wrong doing.

You sure fooled me with your responses in this thread......

You may not be passive, but you sure are unsympathetic.