That is Not Fair

Jim Fausone

Veterans Disability Lawyer

 

Veterans have to really prove up PTSD to VA rating officials to receive about $25,000 a year in disability payments.  But here is a report of a student locked up and forgotten by DEA for five days and he gets $4.1 million from the federal government.  This is not fair.

A UC San Diego student who was forgotten in a Drug Enforcement Administration interrogation room for five days without food or water described the incident as a "really, really bad, horrible accident."

Daniel Chong, 25, will receive $4.1 million from the government to settle his claim.  For reasons that remain unclear, Chong was left for five days in a 5-by-10-foot windowless room without food, water or toilet facilities after being swept up in a campus raid on April 20, 2012.

He claims his quick weight loss allowed him to slip out of a pair of handcuffs.  He also claims to have suffered hallucinations and having to drink his own urine to survive. He tried to break a fire sprinkler to get water but failed.  He screamed for help but soon became too weak.

DEA employees found him covered in his own feces and severely dehydrated.  

Veterans are stuck pursuing claims within an administrative system.  Maybe if they had the right to file a civil suit, they could settle for fair and large dollar amounts.