Drug Enforcement Administration employees saw and heard a handcuffed college student locked in a cell without food or water for five days, but did nothing about it because “they assumed someone else was responsible.”
The Justice Department’s inspector general faulted several DEA employees for their handling of the April 2012 incident that left Daniel Chong in grave physical health, cost the agency a $4.1 million settlement and led to nationwide changes in the agency’s detention policies.
The employees told investigators they found nothing unusual in their encounters with Chong and assumed whoever put him in the cell would return for him shortly. Chong, then 23, ingested methamphetamine, drank his own urine to survive and cut himself with broken glasses while he was held.
Who pays the $4.1 million? Not the DEA