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    KmuzuTaylor Berman
    7/31/13 12:19am

    "Chong, still in handcuffs, was then placed in a holding cell." .. How did he drink his own urine? But more to the point .. what is like to wear handcuffs for four days without food or water?

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      Taylor BermanKmuzu
      7/31/13 12:24am

      From the Daily News: "He urinated on a metal bench to drink his urine.


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      HashTagYoloisbackTaylor Berman
      7/31/13 12:26am

      This is heartbreaking. Poor dude. :(

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    Snacktastic Part II: the Snack AwakensTaylor Berman
    7/31/13 12:06am

    Ugh, I hope this guy is able to work through this shit. 4.1 million sounds like a lot but what he experienced was inexcusable and this doesn't begin to repair the damage. But returning to school and trying to get through things, I wish him all the best.

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      dataminer6677Snacktastic Part II: the Snack Awakens
      7/31/13 12:16am

      No 4 million is enough for this.

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      Ardendataminer6677
      7/31/13 12:40am

      After taxes and lawyer fees, it actually won't be.

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    CoopermanTaylor Berman
    7/31/13 12:43am

    "As a result of his case, it's one of the primary reasons the DEA placed a nationwide policy that calls on each agent at satellite offices to check on the well-being of prisoners in their cells on a daily basis," Yoo said.

    Because this somehow wasn't already a thing?

    GIF
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      SimulatedSnowmanCooperman
      7/31/13 12:52am

      I can see it now.

      Williams: Hey Stevens! Go in there and make sure that dude isn't drinking his own piss due to our negligence!

      Stevens: Aw shucks, Williams! Do I gotta?

      Williams: Yes Stevens, you know what happened last time we didn't make sure one of our prisoners's kidneys weren't failing.

      Stevens: I know I know. Four-point-one million dollars.

      *sardonic laughter from the audience, mild applause*

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      Exponential GrapeCooperman
      7/31/13 10:06am

      I can believe it wasn't a thing...because why should you have remind someone to check on a human being?

      I'm picturing the satellite DEA office being staffed by Seth Rogen and James Franco stoned on a couch saying: "your turn to check on him, man", "Nah, I just checked on him, you go";

      4 days later seth rogen does a classic seth rogen freak out and James Franco calmly relaxes him..."Man...just give the dude 4 mill. He won't even remember who we are! He was drinking piss, dude!"

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    JoeBlowsTaylor Berman
    7/31/13 12:38am

    Wtf was he doing in that house anyway?

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      elaine layaboutJoeBlows
      7/31/13 1:13am

      chong went to the house looking to smoke some weed ... but intent to smoke marijuana is not a crime punishable by long-term isolation, life-threatening food and water deprivation, and being forced to urinate and defecate on oneself ... hell, not even possession with intent to distribute is punishable with such torture

      regardless, the dude was still entitled to due process ... like you would think you were if you ever found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time

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      JoeBlowselaine layabout
      7/31/13 2:19am

      I am in no way discounting the horror he went through. But I have a hard time believing all he wanted to do was smoke weed at a house with 18000 tabs of X and thousand of rounds of ammunition.

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    dinglebushTaylor Berman
    7/31/13 12:10am

    It should have been 4 billion. How will the government learn to do what's right?

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      ElBow73dinglebush
      7/31/13 1:21am

      Do what is right in terms of drug enforcement laws or administration? If you are speaking about administration/government work in general, I think this is actually more of a 'when will people learn to do what is right?' situation. This type of mistake could just as easily have happened within the confines of a private company. But you'd never hear about it because private companies rarely include accountability and transparency in their mission and they are not scrutinized nearly as closely.

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      dinglebushElBow73
      7/31/13 1:46am

      My point is that if we are going to live in a brutal, capitalist oligarchy, our only recourse for achieving justice is high liability for negligent behavior.

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    LuminosityTaylor Berman
    7/31/13 1:03am

    I think the settlement wasn't really for the four days alone in the cell; it was for that moment at the end of Day 2 when the sinking feeling that no one was ever coming back for him, ever again. This experience was like being buried alive. Four million dollars doesn't EVEN begin to cover that sort of terror nor the length of time that he was terrified.

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      DarkTowerLateArrivalLuminosity
      7/31/13 1:20am

      Well said. The people who say they'd go in a cell for 4 days for the paycheck are missing that he had no idea they'd be returning after 4 days. This kid had to think that cell was his grave.

      Anyone with empathy can imagine that sense of hope draining away from him as the minutes, turned to hours, turned to days. He was trying to say goodbye to his mother, and there seems to be a possibility he was going to hurry along his death.

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    km2014Taylor Berman
    7/31/13 12:05am

    If he want to take care of his mother, why change his major to economics?

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      Peppermintkm2014
      7/31/13 12:09am

      He has a few million. He could study journalism and still take care of his mother.

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      purplerainbowsPeppermint
      7/31/13 12:47am

      I wonder how much of that will go towards taxes, paying off hospital fees, and legal debts? :-/

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    Li'l BiscuitTaylor Berman
    7/31/13 12:23am

    Where the hell was this cell that no one walked by or was within earshot? Like no one gets arrested in San Diego and they have holding cells to spare? Every other jail or detention center in the country is overcrowded. They should upgrade that and charge extra!

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      SUSPECT__IS__HATLESSLi'l Biscuit
      7/31/13 12:36am

      I know, I can't picture it. The guy that locked him in probably wandered around for four days going "I feel like I've left the stove on or something."

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      SuperWittySmittyLi'l Biscuit
      7/31/13 5:50am

      It's probably some satellite office, maybe in a under-utilized strip mall, one of many that the DEA maintains in the field. Maybe there's a few rooms that are used as office space, for meetings/storage. and a utility space in the back that's been converted to a temporary holding cell. It's possible that this facility is only staffed on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the guy was picked up Thursday afternoon and put into the holding cell while the paperwork was being processed, each agent wrongly assuming the other one is going to close out the file; this misunderstanding not becoming apparent until the following Tuesday.

      I can see this happening without any great stretch of the imagination. Not all DEA agents are as compassionate and as overly concerned with those they detain as you might think.

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    MikeGreggsTaylor Berman
    7/31/13 12:12am

    He was handcuffed and still managed to drink his own urine?... your move Bear Grylls.

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      Gold LionMikeGreggs
      7/31/13 1:21am

      It's not difficult. Shimmy down his pants (or not either way works), piss somewhere, squat down and drink it up, albeit degradingly, but easily done.

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      liu.lingling.88MikeGreggs
      7/31/13 8:49am

      And also carve an "S" into his arm. Flexible wrists?

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    Super KimtendoTaylor Berman
    7/31/13 12:57am

    KTVU reports that the DEA agent responsible was named Wei Pho Ghot Chong

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      HashTagYoloisbackSuper Kimtendo
      7/31/13 2:16am

      Wow. Racism and mockery of Asian names even in the face of a horrifying ordeal suffered by a fellow human being. You don't have any class.

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      MidsummerNightMoonCakesHashTagYoloisback
      7/31/13 5:00am

      I think Super Kimtendo is referencing what happened recently with the San Francisco plane crash. A newscaster really did read "the names of the pilots" that were mockeries of Asian names, and that, in English, sounded like responses to the situation (such as "flew too low" or whatever). A bunch of people got fired for that, at least.

      Now, Super Kimtendo may be making fun of newscasters...or perhaps not. We don't really know, I guess, but that plane crash incident seems to be the context of the comment.
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