7/9/14 5:41 PM Daniel Chong is the entirely predictable result of dehumanizing drug offenders - The Washington Post

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Drug people are the very vermin of humanity.
Myles Ambrose, director of the Office of Drug Abuse Law
Enforcement during the Nixon Administration.

The Justice Departments Office of the Inspector General has just
released part of its report on the awful case of Daniel Chong. Heres
some background from the San Diego Union-Tribune:
Chong was a 24-year-old engineering student when he was
caught up in the drug sweep by a DEA task force two years
ago.
On the morning of April 21, 2012, Chong was detained with
six other suspects and transported to the DEA field office,
where agents determined that he was not involved in the
ecstasy ring that was under investigation.
A self-confessed pot smoker, Chong told investigators he had
gone to the University City apartment that Friday night to
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7/9/14 5:41 PM Daniel Chong is the entirely predictable result of dehumanizing drug offenders - The Washington Post
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celebrate April 20 an important day for marijuana users
and spent the night.
After being interviewed at the DEA field office Saturday,
agents told Chong he would be released without charges and
driven home soon.
But agents forgot about him and Chong spent the next four
and half days inside the five-by-10-foot cell without food,
water or a toilet. He said his screams for help went
unanswered.
Chong was discovered near death on Wednesday afternoon.
Agents called 911 and he was rushed to a hospital. Chong
spent four days in the hospital for multiple conditions but has
since recovered.
The OIG report is infuriating. We often call it the drug war, but we dont
even treat prisoners of war this way.
Four different federal drug agents saw or heard Daniel Chong
during the five days he was handcuffed in a holding cell
without food or water after a 2012 narcotics sweep, a U.S.
Department of Justice report released on Tuesday found.
The agents did nothing because they assumed someone else
was responsible for the detainee, and because there was no
training for agents on how to track and monitor wards at the
Kearny Mesa detention center, the report found.
So Chong wasnt forgotten. He was ignored. The former would merely be
callous incompetence. The latter is what happens when youre
conditioned to see drug offenders as less than human. To see Chong as a
man dying in a cell would require some empathy. Drug Enforcement
Agency agents arent trained to empathize with drug offenders. Quite the
opposite. Because Chong is just a lowlife addict, its easy to pass him off
as someone elses responsibility. For the four DEA agents who saw
7/9/14 5:41 PM Daniel Chong is the entirely predictable result of dehumanizing drug offenders - The Washington Post
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Chong suffering, coming to his aid hell, just preventing him from
dying wasnt the moral obligation of a fellow human being, but a task
to be assigned within the bureaucracy. That task hadnt been assigned to
them. So hey, it wasnt their job.
Even when the story about what happened to Chong went public, the
dehumanization continued.
In an executive summary of its report, issued Tuesday, the
Office of Inspector General said it intervened in response to a
tip that the local DEA office was trying to contain the matter
in San Diego, counter to protocols.
The three-page summary rebukes the San Diego office for
beginning to investigate the matter on its own using at
least two agents who were involved in the neglect of Chong
and therefore had a direct conflict of interest.
Managers in the DEAs San Diego field division violated
policies and showed poor judgment by initiating such an
investigation without approval, the Inspector General found.
So once word got out, the DEA still didnt see this story as the horrible
mistreatment of a fellow human being. Instead, Chong became a public
relations problem that needed to go away. A good way to make that
happen is to assign the same agents responsible for his neglect to
investigate and determine whether he was neglected. Does anyone really
think there was the slightest chance that these agents would
find themselves culpable?
The DEA now claims to be deeply troubled by Chongs treatment. But
the agency refuses to say whether any agents were fired or disciplined.
This is to protect the professional privacy of the agents involved.
When the federal government arrests you for drug crimes, they release
your name to the media. Sometimes the federal prosecutor in charge of
the investigation will hold a press conference, publicly besmirching your
7/9/14 5:41 PM Daniel Chong is the entirely predictable result of dehumanizing drug offenders - The Washington Post
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reputation before youve had your day in court. Here, federal drug cops
nearly killed a man, then tried to cover it up. But we dont get to know
their names or whether they were disciplined out of respect for their
privacy.
Even the OIG, which is supposed to be the peoples watchdog, affords
Chongs captors more dignity than the federal government ever afforded
Chong.
The government did not release complete report.
We released this summary, and expect to do so in other
appropriate cases, in the interest of enhancing transparency
in administrative matters, consistent with privacy
considerations, the Department of Justice said in a
statement.
Chong survived his ordeal, but last year we learned about Michael
Saffioti, who did die in a Washington state jail cell after he was arrested
for pot possession. Here too, jail officials refused to see Saffioti has a
human being. He was severely allergic to dairy, and was seen on
surveillance video having a contentious conversation with a guard about
his breakfast. He then took a few bites of oatmeal, then began to have a
reaction. He asked to see a nurse, but was sent instead to his jail. His
pleas for help were ignored. The guards accused him of faking. He was
dead about an hour after eating.
Criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield wrote of Saffioti last year:v c
This young mans death reflects the toxic mix of
dehumanization, neglect and deceit. Inmates complain
constantly about nearly every aspect of life in jail. The
accommodations dont suit many, and there isnt much
reason not to complain. The product is that complaints are
ignored.
After all, to the guards, these arent people, but inmates.
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Thats what inmates do, complain. Do something about the
complaints and theyll just be back complaining about
something else tomorrow. Ignore them and theyll still be
back, but its easier to just ignore them again tomorrow.
The problem is that every once in a while, a complaint, like a
life-threatening food allergy, is real. Not just real, but brutally
real. To take the time to listen, to hear, to take seriously, a
complaint is more than a guard can bear. Jails are all about
routine, and routine applies to everyone. To expect COs to
treat inmates like people, to take the time to distinguish
between real complaints and the typical noise is to expect
them to be caring, intelligent people. Thats not part of the
routine.
Before Saffioti, there was Jonathan Magbie, a quadriplegic who died
when he was left unattended in a D.C. jail cell. Magbie was serving a 10-
day sentence for pot possession. In just the past week, weve seen a
gravely ill cancer patient rushed to the hospital during his trial
for growing the pot he used to treat his symptoms; a callous and reckless
raid in which a Florida man was shot and killed in his own home over
$200 in alleged pot sales to an informant; and a Chicago cop who helped
his daughter-in-law grow pot to treat the symptoms of his cancer-
stricken granddaughter, who then had his same daughter-in-law
arrested after his granddaughter died.
Its important to understand that these stories arent the product of
rogue cops, jail officials or prosecutors. For 45 years now, the
government has been waging an all-too-literal war on drugs. Since
antiquity, great leaders have known that to win a war to condition the
population to be comfortable with all the violence and sacrifice that
winning requires you first dehumanize your enemy. Understand that,
and youll begin to understand why the DEA had no safeguards in place
to protect Daniel Chong but plenty of safeguards in place to protect the
privacy of the DEA agents who almost killed him.
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7/9/14 5:41 PM Daniel Chong is the entirely predictable result of dehumanizing drug offenders - The Washington Post
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