DEA casually leave 24 y/o UCSD student in cell for 5 days to drink own urine

[Doktor Howl]

That's okay, I know how to turn my washing machine into a centrifuge if need be.

This is going in newsfeed.

[East Coast Hustle]

Eh, I've worked with plenty of good joes from the DEA.  None of them would have left someone like that. 

The DEA doesn't hire "good joes".

They don't fit in with the company philosophy.

The fact that you think those are "good people" may, however, reveal something about you.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Also, people who seem like good folks can seem like completely different people if you're on the other end of their shitty stick.

"He seemed like such a nice guy, never bothered anyone..." <-- Basically every character witness ever.

[AFK]

Eh, I've worked with plenty of good joes from the DEA.  None of them would have left someone like that. 

The DEA doesn't hire "good joes".

They don't fit in with the company philosophy.

The fact that you think those are "good people" may, however, reveal something about you.

Yes, that I judge people on a case by case basis based upon my interactions with them. 

[Doktor Howl]

Eh, I've worked with plenty of good joes from the DEA.  None of them would have left someone like that. 

The DEA doesn't hire "good joes".

They don't fit in with the company philosophy.

The fact that you think those are "good people" may, however, reveal something about you.

Yes, that I judge people on a case by case basis based upon my interactions with them.

In my experience, all federal cops with the possible exception of the US Marshalls are pretty much indistinguishable from the people you would have found working for Heinrich Himmler.

[AFK]

Also, people who seem like good folks can seem like completely different people if you're on the other end of their shitty stick.

"He seemed like such a nice guy, never bothered anyone..." <-- Basically every character witness ever.

But you can say that about anybody.  I could say that about any of you.  You all could be the nice people I think you are or a bunch of shit-necks.  However, I'm choosing to make whatever judgement I make based upon what I know of you. 

There are certainly crap-weasels in the DEA, hell, there are probably a lot of them.  All I'm saying is my experience tells me they aren't all crap-weasels. 

[AFK]

Eh, I've worked with plenty of good joes from the DEA.  None of them would have left someone like that. 

The DEA doesn't hire "good joes".

They don't fit in with the company philosophy.

The fact that you think those are "good people" may, however, reveal something about you.

Yes, that I judge people on a case by case basis based upon my interactions with them.

In my experience, all federal cops with the possible exception of the US Marshalls are pretty much indistinguishable from the people you would have found working for Heinrich Himmler.

Okay then.  I personally think that is a very broad brush. 

[Doktor Howl]

Eh, I've worked with plenty of good joes from the DEA.  None of them would have left someone like that. 

The DEA doesn't hire "good joes".

They don't fit in with the company philosophy.

The fact that you think those are "good people" may, however, reveal something about you.

Yes, that I judge people on a case by case basis based upon my interactions with them.

In my experience, all federal cops with the possible exception of the US Marshalls are pretty much indistinguishable from the people you would have found working for Heinrich Himmler.

Okay then.  I personally think that is a very broad brush.

Hence the "in my experience".  I've dealt with a fairly large number of INS agents, for example, and they are 100% jackbooted scum.  The few dealings I've had with the DEA and the one time I interacted with the FBI were almost as bad.

[Cain]

In my experience, all federal cops with the possible exception of the US Marshalls are pretty much indistinguishable from the people you would have found working for Heinrich Himmler.

I was just about to reply to what Cainad said with a quote about the SS, actually.

I actually cannot find it now, which is very annoying, but basically it was about how the SS in a certain town were mingling with people there, happy, laughing, giving sweets to the children, joking around....and then the next they were given the order to attack.  And they did.  They weren't "monsters", in the sense of being off-the-wall psychopaths who enjoyed inflicting pain, but they were given a legitimate order, and they carried it out.  And that just happened to mean killing civilians they had been getting along with quite happily 24 hours earlier.

It's not an exact parallel, but I suspect there is a strong culture of "fuck him, he's a drug addict, he's getting what he deserves" among DEA agents.  The guy had been picked up at a drug bust, and had admitted to being there to buy drugs.  And that was all they needed.  He didn't matter enough to warrant looking after in any great detail, or even remembering about.  "Just another druggie."

[navkat]

That's okay, I know how to turn my washing machine into a centrifuge if need be.

This is going in newsfeed.

[Don Coyote]

Also, people who seem like good folks can seem like completely different people if you're on the other end of their shitty stick.

"He seemed like such a nice guy, never bothered anyone..." <-- Basically every character witness ever.

" an went to church every sunday."

[East Coast Hustle]

Eh, I've worked with plenty of good joes from the DEA.  None of them would have left someone like that. 

The DEA doesn't hire "good joes".

They don't fit in with the company philosophy.

The fact that you think those are "good people" may, however, reveal something about you.

Yes, that I judge people on a case by case basis based upon my interactions with them.

In my experience, all federal cops with the possible exception of the US Marshalls are pretty much indistinguishable from the people you would have found working for Heinrich Himmler.

DIFW guys are OK. I mean, they're major hardcases mostly, but they tend to treat people like people.

[Triple Zero]

Also, people who seem like good folks can seem like completely different people if you're on the other end of their shitty stick.

"He seemed like such a nice guy, never bothered anyone..." <-- Basically every character witness ever.

But you can say that about anybody.  I could say that about any of you.  You all could be the nice people I think you are or a bunch of shit-necks.

I kind of like to believe that the way PD tends to vocally call people on the merest hint of shit-neckery, that we generally do a fairly good job of sorting out such kinds of filth. (we do agree that the people that let this happen are filth and in a better system should receive justice, right? -- especially if they're not representative of the whole)

In a professional situation there's job security to worry about and people tend to avoid confrontation and difficult questions.

How about next time you meet a DEA person you ask them how they feel about this story. Be sure to include a few critical questions about how this could even have happened, what went wrong, why there's people in the DEA that can let this happen, and not simply accept a "that was terrible, and should never have happened" and leave it at that.

[Cain]

RWHN, you're hardly meeting them in the kind of social context where their ability to be complete shits would exactly be acceptable.  I mean, I doubt meetings with state and NGO officials would work out well if they went around being monstrous dicks to people.

If you had met them first when they were nabbing you at a drug bust, you might have seen a whole different side to them.  And unless you're in that situation, no, you can't know what they're truly capable of.

One of the downsides of having studied the reality of how power and authority affects people is that you have to live with the idea that a good number of people around you would kill you if someone with a uniform and a weapon told them to.  A two thirds majority, most likely.  What makes DEA agents any better than the people who took part in the Stanford Prison Experiment, or the Milgram experiment?  Absolutely nothing, that's what.

[AFK]

Well, no I'm not out there with them busting up cartels or anything like that.  But I actually am often enough in situations, socially, where there is candid and, off the record conversations.  And in my work, I'm pretty good at picking out the characters who are in this work for the right reasons and those who are in it for powered trips, egos, political gain, etc.  So I have to disagree with that.