Daniel Chong suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after being held in a cell for five days with no food or water.
Obama administration officials and lawmakers are calling for greater accountability and tougher disciplinary procedures at the Drug Enforcement Administration after the agency imposed only light punishments on agents who forgot a San Diego man in a holding cell, leaving him without food or water for five days and nearly killing him.
Daniel Chong, a UC San Diego student, was detained in 2012 for what he was told would be five minutes after he was swept up in a drug bust at a friend’s house, where he had been smoking marijuana. Instead, agents forgot about him. Chong, who was 23 at the time, drank his own urine to stave off dehydration until he was found, delirious and suffering from severe breathing problems, according to a report last summer by the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General.
After an internal DEA review concluded in March, the six DEA agents involved received only reprimands and short suspensions, spurring the Justice Department to demand reforms to prevent such mistakes from reoccurring.
In an April 28 letter to members of Congress obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the Justice Department said that what happened to Chong was “unacceptable” and that “the DEA’s failure to impose significant discipline on these employees further demonstrates the need for a systemic review of DEA’s disciplinary process.”
Read more at: The L.A. Times