The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is infamous for stacking charges on defendants and arresting individuals for seemingly minor possessions. However, when it comes to its own agents, there appears to be an endless level of leniency. In 2012, DEA carried out a raid on a home and arrested a group of young people who were smoking marijuana. One was Daniel Chong. Despite the minor violation, Chong was arrested and interrogated. He was told that he would be released but DEA agents simply forgot about him and left him in a cell for five days without food or water. At one point, as the 23-year-old cried and begged for help, someone with the DEA came in and turned off the light in his cell to leave him in the dark. He was given no food or water. Someone was charged, right? Someone was fired, right? No, the DEA has decided that a few reprimands and short suspensions is fine for starving and almost killing Chong.
I earlier wrote a column on how the U.S. government seems to be gradually adopting the legal standards of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. This case seem to fit that storyline all too neatly.
Even the Justice Department has questioned “the DEA’s failure to impose significant discipline on these employees.”
Chong was never charged with a crime and ultimately received a $4.1-million settlement.
The three DEA agents and supervisor responsible will continue to work for the government even though they almost killed Chong who was hospitalized for days after his ordeal. Four reprimands were issued and the supervisor was given a seven-day suspension. Case closed.
Source: LA Times
There is verifiable data. Just look at the DOJ investigation into the Ferguson PD alone. It’s not a stretch by any means to extrapolate this to PDs all over the nation. These incidents are not rare. There is sketchy data because the culture of PDs Is not to tell on themselves and to brush way too many incidents under the rug. With the videos and public outcry this just won’t cut it anymore.
Inga – a bunch of teachers were caught cheating on test and convicted. Would it be hard to extrapolate that throughout the country?
It’s insulting because you take a small number of incidents and expand it into what you deem to be a culture of corruption. You do this based on your political beliefs, and not on any verifiable data, studies or reports.
It’s like saying “all men are jerks” because of a bad breakup, or “all women are sluts” because on one person’s behaviors.
Just a bit of courage and change can happen.
Haz, I will be the first to agree the culture in nursing homes and hospitals is bad. I know first hand. To help the good nurses and the good cops we need to acknowledge the culture needs to change. Why us this so insulting? There are strong people who perpetuate the bad culture, if strong good people capitulate to them, things never change.
You are painting with the same broad brush. So let me continue the analogy and point out that not all nurses are bad, but good nurses are stuck in a bad culture that needs reform. It’s not an insult to all nurses, including you, to say that the culture is bad.
You see the point, I hope. When you say “the culture is bad” you use that to continue painting all cops as bad because they are part of what you deem a “bad culture”.
You have no verifiable data, by the way, just feelings.
But no one painted all LEO’s as bad. That’s what you keep getting wrong. It’s the culture that is bad. Good cops are stuck in that culture and if they buck the system they pay. The culture is bad, the culture needs reform. It’s not an insult to all cops, my brother included, to say the culture of law enforcement has a major problem.
It’s absurd in this context.
You are so close to the correct answer that you can reach out and touch it.
The absurdity of painting all nurses with broad brush based on the conduct of a few bad nurses was being used to show how absurd it is to paint all law enforcement officers with a broad brush based on the conduct of a few bad officers.
It was a simple example that apparently wasn’t understood.
Rick,
What I quoted was your question. I answered it. You’re right; there is no comparison.
So why would you bring it up? It’s absurd in this context. Yet you piled on I. Annie as if she believed negligent nurses are a good thing and somehow relate to the the DEA agents who did this. Not surprising here; you’re about the fifth guy I’ve seen take this tack.
War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery.
I’m extremely disappointed to see someone deleted my comment.
Rick – after awhile you just accept it.
http://kstp.com/kstpImages/repository/2015-03/casper.jpg
Trooper Trevor Casper. Shot to death by a bank robber. Trooper Casper was 21 years old, and in his first months of service.
http://www.odmp.org/agency/214-baltimore-city-police-department-maryland
http://newsnyork.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/IonkrpQzes.jpg
The family of Tamir Rice at his funeral, 12 year old shot by police.
I have been to that service on the Capitol Square. I do not know any fallen cops. I pray for the living as I know you have a brother who died in the line of duty.
I spent part of the afternoon at a memorial ceremony for fallen law enforcement officers. It was lovely, and quite moving as it has been each year I attended. The governor was there, the police chief, the mayor, the sheriff, the attorney general, and other dignitaries. Each made a heartfelt speech, as did a spouse of an officer who was killed in the line of duty.
Bagpipers piped, a minister gave the invocation, colors were presented, wreaths laid. The national anthem was sung. A twenty-one gun salute was fired, and finally a bugler played Taps.
I thought about all the people who were there: relatives of fallen officers, sheriff deputies, agents, and others; all the police; the dozens of young police cadets who lined the perimeter of the room. People willing to give their lives in service to others; people who know first-hand what loss feels like when an officer’s life is lost.
And then driving home afterwards I thought about the six or eight petty, mean, hateful people on this blog who delight and relish in demonizing law enforcement, who smear all others with a broad brush when there is a story about one person out of one hundred thousand who acts badly.
Such small, petty, pathetic people. So much anger and hatred. So repulsive in the things they say and believe.
I take comfort in knowing that for each one of the people like that, there are many thousands of brave men and women who choose law enforcement as their profession, even in the face of blind hatred.
It doesn’t matter whose question it was Rick. Fiver gave an accurate answer.
Paul C
My reason for mentioning prisons was to prove a point. There is a duty of care that exists for the inmates, as well. There is a duty to care for those individuals, and I would argue that the duty extends to protecting those in that care from harm. Inmates are routinely brutalized by other inmates while in that care. Why is a lack of personnel, by the prison, acceptable as a shield? When was the last time you read about one of the wardens, guards, etc., being held accountable? Where do you draw the line?
bam bam – there is so much you can do and some things that you probably will be held responsible for.
fiver
Actually, that was your invented comparison. You asked a hypothetical question; I quoted it; and I answered it.
Wrong on every point. What you quoted was a subject, not a comparison. And it wasn’t mine, it was Annie’s.
So sorry you weren’t pleased with the answer, but pleasing you wasn’t my purpose.
I agree pleasing me isn’t important, but I would have thought demonstrating better judgement would be.
Actually, that was your invented comparison. You asked a hypothetical question; I quoted it; and I answered it.
So sorry you weren’t pleased with the answer, but pleasing you wasn’t my purpose. Answering your hypothetical was.
Only a fool keeps repeating the same experiment expecting a different result.
How about the VA? Did all those responsible for the fraud that caused the deaths of honored veterans get fired and face charges?