Daniel Chong left in cell for days by US Drug Enforcement Agency gets $4m

Daniel Chong who was forgotten in Drug Enforcement Administration holding cell for more than four days with no food or water

THE US Justice Department will pay $US4.1 million to a California college student left in a holding cell for four days without food or water.

Daniel Chong, 23, was detained in an April 2012 drug raid in San Diego and left in the 1.5-metre x 3-metre windowless holding cell. He said he drank his own urine to stay alive and tried to write a farewell message to his mother with his own blood.

Chong's attorney, Eugene Iredale, said on Tuesday that no one has yet been disciplined for the April 2012 incident, and no criminal charges will be filed.

Iredale says the Justice Department's inspector general is investigating what caused Chong's near-death experience.

Chong's attorneys say the Drug Enforcement Administration had no policy on the treatment of detainees at the time. It does now, and that policy includes cameras in cells and daily inspections.

Chong, who was an engineering student at University of California, San Diego, was at a friend's house in April 2012 when a US Drug Enforcement Administration raid netted 18,000 ecstasy pills, other drugs and weapons. Chong and eight others were taken into custody.

Agents told Chong he would not be charged and had him wait in the cell at DEA offices in San Diego. The door did not reopen for four days, when agents found him severely dehydrated and covered in his own feces.

Chong said he began to hallucinate on the third day. He urinated on a metal bench to drink his urine. He stacked a blanket, his pants and shoes on the bench and tried to reach an overhead fire sprinkler, futilely swatting at it with his cuffed hands to set it off.

Chong said last year that he gave up and accepted death. He bit into his eyeglasses to break them. He said he used a shard of glass to carve "Sorry Mom" onto his arm so he could leave something for her. He managed to finish an "S."

Chong was hospitalised for five days for dehydration, kidney failure, cramps and a perforated esophagus. He lost 7 kilos.

The DEA issued a rare public apology at the time.

Chong had filed a $US20 million claim against the federal government a year ago.

A DEA spokesman, Rusty Payne, referred questions on Monday to the Justice Department, which handled settlement negotiations. A call to the Justice Department's public affairs office was not returned.

Original report here

Another account:

Student abandoned in DEA cell describes 'screaming for days' before he was found

25-year-old college student Daniel Chong, who has reached a $4.1 million settlement with the US government after he was abandoned in a windowless Drug Enforcement Administration cell for more than four days without food or water, has described his ordeal.

Daniel Chong said he drank his own urine to stay alive, hallucinated that agents were trying to poison him with gases through the vents, and tried to carve a farewell message to his mother in his arm.

Mr Chong was taken into custody during a drug raid and placed in the cell in April 2012 by a police officer authorised to perform Drug Enforcement Administration work. The officer told Mr Chong he would not be charged and said, "'Hang tight, we'll come get you in a minute,'" Mr Iredale said.

The door to the five-by-ten-foot cell did not reopen for four-and-a-half days.

Justice Department spokeswoman Allison Price confirmed the settlement was reached for $4.1 million but declined to answer other questions. The DEA didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

"I didn't just sit there quietly. I was kicking the door yelling. I even put some shoestrings, shoelaces through the crack of the door for visual signs. I didn't stay still, no, I was screaming," said Mr Chong.

It remained unclear how the situation occurred, and no one has been disciplined, said Eugene Iredale, an attorney for Mr Chong, The Justice Department's inspector general is investigating.

"We hope that at some point there can be at least the individual attribution of responsibility for what happened and some kind of appropriate administrative sanction if nothing more than to rebuke the suggestion that when you put someone in a holding cell without food or water, you should let them out before five days at best," said Mr Iredale.

Mr Chong, now an economics student at the University of California, San Diego, said he planned to buy his parents a house.

Original report here



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