Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Student Left In DEA jail to Get $4.1 Million


By Dave Summers, R. Stickney and Greg Bledsoe, NBC San Diego


The U.S. government will pay $4.1 million to avoid a lawsuit against federal agents who forgot about a UC San Diego student left in a holding cell for days without food or water.
Daniel Chong spent five days in a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) holding cell in April 2012.
Taken into custody on a DEA raid, Chong was left in a windowless room without food and water. He was forced to drink his own urine hoping it would help him stay alive.
Chong's attorney, who along with his client threatened a lawsuit against the DEA, announced the $4.1 million settlement Tuesday.

“What happened to Daniel Chong should not happen to any human being,” attorney Gene Iredale said.
Iredale said it was a San Diego Police Department officer by the name of Darin Reis who told Chong on that first day that someone would be right back to get him.
The officer was part of a DEA task force made up of local, state and federal law enforcement.
"It was an accident, a really really bad horrible accident," Chong said Tuesday regarding the officer's alleged mistake.

The UC San Diego student was at a friend’s house in University City celebrating 4/20, a day many marijuana users set aside to smoke, when agents came inside and raided the residence.
Chong was then taken to the DEA office in Kearny Mesa.
“I had to do what I had to do to survive,” Chong told NBC 7 after the incident. “It’s so inconceivable. You keep doubting they would forget you."
When he was eventually found, Chong was incoherent and suffering from kidney failure. He was rushed to the hospital where he spent three days in the ICU.
More than a year later the DEA that put him there is paying the price. Defense attorney Gretchen Von Helms, who is not representing Chong, previously estimated the settlement could be in the $2-3 million range.

"You break it down into the pain and suffering and how horrible this could have been for the family. They didn't know where he was, all the anguish the family went through and the young man went through,” Von Helms said.
Eventually Chong was discovered and the DEA issued a formal apology.
Since then, Chong has been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and is being treated by a doctor who normally treats veterans who have returned from battle.

Juror: Zimmerman 'Got Away With Murder' But Had To Be Acquitted




Pool via EPA
George Zimmerman listens as the verdict is announced July 13 in Sanford, Fla.
A member of the jury that acquitted George Zimmerman said Thursday she thinks Zimmerman "got away with murder" but that jurors had no choice in finding him not guilty under the law.
In an interview Thursday with ABC News, the woman identified as Juror B29 during the trial discussed the deliberations that led to the acquittal of Zimmerman on second-degree murder and manslaughter charges on July 13 in the shooting death last year of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman said he shot Martin in self defense.

The juror, whom the network identified as Puerto Rican, was the only minority member on the six-woman jury.
The jurors' names remain sealed, but the woman allowed ABC to show her face and identify her by the name Maddy. She is a nursing assistant and the mother of eight children.
The woman said the evidence didn't prove murder, "Even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty."
"We had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence," she said. Juror B29 said she initially held out for convicting Zimmerman of second-degree murder, but after nine hours of deliberations, she came to the conclusion that wasn't enough proof under Florida law."I was the juror that was going to give them the hung jury. I fought to the end," she said.

George Zimmerman got away with murder, but you can't get away from God. And at the end of the day, he's going to have a lot of questions and answers he has to deal with," she said. But "the law couldn't prove it."The woman told ABC News that she still isn't sure she made the right call, saying, "I felt like I let a lot of people down" — especially Martin's parents.  "It's hard for me to sleep, it's hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin's death," she said. "And as I carry him on my back, I'm hurting as much (as) Trayvon's Martin's mother, because there's no way that any mother should feel that pain."


In a statement late Thursday, Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, said:
"It is devastating for my family to hear the comments from juror B29, comments which we already knew in our hearts to be true. That George Zimmerman literally got away with murder. This new information challenges our nation once again to do everything we can to make sure that this never happens to another child."

Attempts by NBC News to reach Zimmerman attorney Mark O'Mara for comment were not successful.
Only one other juror has spoken out publicly about the verdict. Juror B37 said in an interview earlier this month on CNN that only three jurors thought Zimmerman should be acquitted when deliberations began and that all of them cried when they were over.
She said Martin "played a huge role" in his own death and said "he could have walked away and gone home."
Four of the other jurors — all but the woman who spoke to ABC News on Thursday — later issued a statement saying Juror B37's remarks didn't represent their views.