Federal government traps 24-year-old man in a room for 4 days

The Daily Caller reports:

Daniel Chong, a 24-year-old University of California, San Diego engineering student [was] detained and then forgotten about by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Chong was detained on April 21 when agents raided the home of a drug dealer. The agency confiscated 18,000 ecstasy pills, along with other drugs and guns.

The New York Times adds:

Mr. Chong was left alone in the 5-by-10-foot holding cell, with no food, no sink and no toilet — only a blanket. He said he could hear footsteps as agents walked by, other cell doors opening and toilets flushing. He kicked the door, screaming for water. But no one came.

After the first two days, Mr. Chong said, he began to hallucinate, imagining “little Japanese cartoon characters telling me what to do.” He clawed at the walls, convinced that they contained messages about where to find water.

Three times he drank his own urine. The only sustenance he had, he said, was a packet of white powder that he found wrapped in the blanket, which turned out to be methamphetamine.

On the fourth day, he said, the lights in the cell went out. Eventually, his hands still cuffed behind his back, he broke his eyeglasses with his teeth, as he contemplated killing himself. On his arm, he tried to carve a message: “Sorry Mom.” He also swallowed a piece of the glass, which cut his esophagus.

The DEA has admitted that they trapped him in the cell. A DEA spokesperson says:

"[H]e was at the house, by his own admission, to get high with his friends."

By his own admission!

This would have been unacceptable treatment even if he had been a serial killer.