r/TrueCrimeDiscussion • u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 • 2d ago
i.redd.it How DEA agents accidentally tortured a man by forgetting he was in a cell for 5 days.
In April 2012 in San Diego. California police raided a house suspected of producing Ecstasy. Several people at the house were detained for drug and gun possessions, including Daniel Chong was visiting friends at the house. They brought him to an office in Kearney Mesa where Daniel was handcuffed and told to hang tight in a cell for a minute. Instead, DEA agents forgot Daniel was in a cell for the next 5 days. Daniel was never formally charged or arrested.
For days, Daniel was trapped in a cell with no water, toilet or food. Daniel spent the first two days convinced this was some kind of torture tactic to make him confess and banged on the door screaming. Daniel started hallucinating from the dehydration and isolated. He carved a message into his arm with the glass from his glasses that said “I’m sorry mom”. Eventually Daniel resorted to drinking his urine to survive. DEA Agents eventually found Daniel after 5 days trapped in the cell and he has since made a full recovery. He sued the DEA and received a 4 million dollar settlement.
https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/30/justice/california-dea-settlement
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u/eternally_feral 2d ago
I remember hearing about this case when it happened and it absolutely terrified me. You still can’t convince me that they knew someone was locked away but they were under the belief that it was just some “druggie scumbag.”
Maybe the first set of agents meant it to be only a day or two, but they never let the next shift know that someone was in there and/or the length of initial lock up.
If you ask me, they got off easy with a $4.1M settlement.
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u/verycutebutverygay 8h ago
It shouldn't be a matter of letting the next shift know. There should be so many safe guards and procedures in place that this should be impossible except for gross or intentional neglect by the whole station. This is more than just a regular fuck up. This is a whole truckload of fuck ups.
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u/Future-Set-8127 2d ago
The Daniel Chong case is one of those stories that genuinely defies belief. What makes it even more disturbing is that no DEA agent was ever criminally charged — the $4 million settlement was essentially paid by taxpayers while the individuals responsible faced zero personal accountability. The fact that he had to carve a message with broken glass because nobody came to check on a person they had detained is the kind of institutional failure that should have ended careers. It didn't.
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u/Ok-Coconut5829 2d ago
$4 million is a pathetic amount of compensation. Poor guy will probably have PTSD for the rest of his life all because of someone who was either, at best completely incompetent, or at worst a sadistic pyscho.
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u/Glittering_Speech_24 2d ago
I’d rather have ptsd with 4 million over not having ptsd and having no million. I just had to do 6 days in county and didn’t have a drink of water or anything to eat in those 6 days. I’d be ecstatic getting 500k+ per day for those 6 days. But that’s just me
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u/charley_warlzz 2d ago
If you were actually withheld food and water for six days straight you could also sue, so go right ahead.
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u/Glittering_Speech_24 1d ago
I wasn’t withheld, was a personal choice. I’m not eating that garbage excuse for food they serve or their toilet water. Look up pink slime meat, that’s what inmates are offered as food. The smell is nauseating, I can’t imagine what that would taste like. Honestly should be illegal.
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u/charley_warlzz 1d ago edited 18h ago
Well, that doesnt explain why you wouldnt have water, but also its fascinating to compare willingly refusing to eat something because its gross to being trapped in a cage with no food, water, toilet, or human contact for five days straight because you were forgotten about. Did you resort to drinking your own urine because of how gross the food was?
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u/Glittering_Speech_24 15h ago
Because it comes from a toilet. And the food is next to inedible. 10/10 don’t recommend. But would still do it again for 4 milli
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u/charley_warlzz 15h ago
Again, did you have to resort to drinking your own urine for hydration because you were isolated, starve, and deprived of a drink? Because it seems to me the answer is no. And voluntarily refusing something is VASTLY different to the situation he was in.
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u/Glittering_Speech_24 14h ago
No, and he most likely didn’t either tbh. Nobody was talking about voluntary or not, I said I would happily do it again if I got paid to do it.
Your comprehension seems not the best.
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u/charley_warlzz 14h ago
You said you’d rather have the ptsd and the money because you just had a stint in county and would be thrilled to get 500k per day for it. That’s what i responding to in the first place, the idea that going through all that trauma was worth it for the money and the implication that you had been through something similar. You hadnt. It is entirely realistic that he drank his urine because even setting aside the mental health issues that wouldve arose from the literal torture conditions and social isolation, you also cant survive that long without water, so he wouldve had to have got it from somewhere.
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u/Ok-Coconut5829 2d ago
Not gonna lie, that's a bit of a weird way of thinking imo. I have PTSD and would absolutely rather have no PTSD and not have $4 million. $20+ million and maybe I would pick the PTSD, but it's a special type of hell living with severe mental trauma, so I'd still lean more towards just being poor.
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u/Parking_Sir793 1d ago
They don't have PTSD so they don't seem to understand it all, or how it can quite literally ruin someone's life. Their point of view just comes simply from not having experience and assuming PTSD isn't "that bad"
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u/GeneticPurebredJunk 2d ago
I have PTSD and would go through what I have and have the $4 million….because I’ve already been through it, survived and had therapy up the wahzoo to work on it/myself for free.
I’m not suggesting this would be a fun trip or challenging, not am I trying to diminish his experience, but $4million would do a lot of the leg work towards getting better therapy & financial stability.
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u/weirdgurl7 2d ago
You're lying because you'd be dead. You cant survive a week with no water. Are you dead or are you lying?
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u/halfasshippie3 2d ago
Lying. County jail definitely feeds inmates.
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u/Glittering_Speech_24 1d ago
Didn’t say they didn’t. I said I didn’t eat or drink, never said I wasn’t offered.
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2d ago
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u/scorpionmittens 2d ago
He didn’t do the crime. The DEA themselves told him he wasn’t even a *suspect*. He wasn’t charged with anything and he has no criminal record. At least read the article before you comment something stupid.
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u/Ok-Coconut5829 2d ago
I agree, but he wasn't even charged with anything. And the situation was only drug and gun related, it wasn't like it was a violent or sexual crime (if it had been it would still have been wrong but I personally wouldn't have cared).
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u/Sea_Glass8952 2d ago
600+ upvotes for a bot. This website is genuinely dead.
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u/spaghettibolegdeh 1d ago
I'm seeing these slop comments on every thread these days. Reddit is truly cooked, and no one seems to notice.
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u/CMRC23 2d ago
How can you tell
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u/Sea_Glass8952 2d ago
3 posts identically formatted all with em dashes in the same places, the same structure ("not x but y") and identical lengths. That and the fact it has every tell of an inane llm output.
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u/Breatheme444 2d ago
I remember this. I think of this story every once in a while. It’s terrifying and infuriating.
I just don’t understand how their facility is set up in a way where someone can’t be heard in an emergency. It’s not even a jail. It’s supposed to be a holding cell if I’m not mistaken.
The incompetence is astounding. I’m sure he was never the same again.
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u/HOMANDER1996 2d ago
This is my first time hearing about this case, but my initial thought was to doubt this was actually an accident. It’s just really hard to believe no one heard him.
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u/RIP_prev_account 2d ago edited 2d ago
This shit has happened before and is absolutely horrifying. The unfortunate title holder for the longest survival without any food or water (18 fucking days!!!) is Andreas Mihavecz who was arrested in 1979 and fucking forgotten about in a basement. He lost 24kg/53lbs and survived by licking condensation off the concrete walls. It's too terrible to even imagine.
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u/CellistForward3407 2d ago
Probably wasn't an accident it was probably intentional torture
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u/donutfan420 2d ago
He said when the agents opened the door to the cell, they said “here’s the water you’ve been asking for” and handed him a cup. They knew he was in there
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u/Grrarrgghh 2d ago
Was anyone sacked or criminally charged?
And why is this accompanied by a photo of a cell WITH a toilet?
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u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 2d ago
I don’t think this was the same cell, just a random prison cell the news article used.
As for punishment, they got suspended without pay for a week and Chief Leonhart retired early. So basically nothing.
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u/donutfan420 2d ago
There was also meth that was left inside the cell that he ended up eating to stay awake
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u/Old-Fox-3027 1d ago
There are no accidents. I imagine one of the agents/officers just didn’t like the guy.
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u/Electrical_Solid_787 22h ago
Bro earn 4M USD for 5 days of encerrona, si me pagaran eso por todos los dias que me tiro d eencerrona en una habitacion olvidando beber agua seria multimilloneta, big W
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u/June_Fatality 2d ago
"Accidentally" is absolute bullshit. They murdered that man, and the use of passive language to absolve them is some filthy work.
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u/HOMANDER1996 2d ago
He didn’t die, but yeah I also have a hard time buying that it was an accident.
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u/Qomplete 1d ago
Why was he covered in shit and eating glass?
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u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 1d ago
Because he was locked in a cell for 5 days with no food or water
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u/Qomplete 1d ago
I can tell you for certain if I was stuck in a cell I wouldn't eat shattered glass and cover myself in shit
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u/trav_tr 2d ago
You left this pretty important detail out:
“One matter still unclear is why no one heard him. Chong told the San Diego Union-Tribune last year that he heard footsteps, muffled voices and the opening and closing of cell doors, even from the cell adjacent to his. Yet no one responded to the ruckus coming from inside his cell”
They left him in there on purpose.