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Video Shows US Border Agents Make 16-year-old Boy Drink Liquid Meth Until He Dies
- Thread starter ponpo
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If you can pass the paper bag test. If you can't then protections other cops get, like the police rallying behind you and withholding your name for days or even weeks, are out the window when you murder someone.
paperboywriter
Member
This is not murder?
This post makes me want to punch a wall.
It's their job, you idiot. They are supposed to follow proper procedures and not play some sort of sick twisted game of life and death. They let this boy die because of their idiocy.
QuicheFontaine
Member
Chinese police did the "drink it" thing to my wife when we were getting on the Beijing metro to prove it was water in her bottle. She drank it and we were on our way. Seems like a reasonable test to me.
Except the officers
- clearly suspected what the substance was,
- should know how dangerous it is,
- should be aware that a sixteen year old kid likely has no idea,
- understand that he is not a hardened criminal but a naive kid being manipulated with the promise of a few dollars,
- understand that he is scared of getting in trouble and might well drink it if he thinks it will get him out of the situation,
- have the ability to just test the substance and know for sure,
- shouldn't be abusing the obvious power dynamic in the situation to try and teach the kid a lesson - that is what the law they are supposed to uphold is for
What a mess.
The Greek Freak
Member
I'm not anti immigration, but you can be for curbing immigration without wanting border agents to be killing detainees.
How is that a reasonable test? Not all drugs are equal. Not everyone makes rational decisions when under stress and choosing between betraying a drugs gang by confessing to armed, laughing American enforcement officers while Mexican vs drinking a concoction of meth they probably don't understand. That's three potentially fatal options bundled for a terrified teenager right there, no matter their crime they don't deserve to die for it. Slightly more stressful than being asked to drink some water that you know is water while an innocent western tourist in Beijing. On top of that, they are border control- they have resources, colleagues, test kits, interview rooms, they are completely in control of the situation. There is absolutely no reason for someone to die in an environment supposedly specialised to calmly seperate illegal activity from what isn't without death.
The reasonable test is to do their job and detain people they suspect of smuggling meth without making them drink concentrated meth for a cheap laugh.
Miles Quaritch
Member
But his wife drank her water though. You just don't understand how that's a direct 1:1 comparison.
QuicheFontaine
Member
Their job is to stop harmful stuff from coming in the country, right? Maybe lay the blame at the drug dealers who made that shit in the first place.
There's plenty of blame to go around, but just because drug dealers make shit citizens want to buy isn't a good enough reason for law enforcement officials to be encouraging teenagers to drink crystal meth on the basis that they have no responsibility to not kill people in their custody. There is such thing as a duty of care once someone is on your power, justice is decided in court in the cold light of day, not by random frontline staff killing off whoever they don't like at the first sign of the crime they are employed to stop.
Teenagers that end up as drug mules don't always have good options to choose from, that doesn't mean cynical officers can hurt them at will because they think it's funny rather than treat them as both a criminal and a human being worthy of life at the same time. How anyone can read that and not think a kid with that quantity should have been taken to a private room to be detained/interviewed/processed by competent border control staff rather than humiliated and killed in an allegedly civilised country while the authorities eventually shrug their shoulders is beyond me.
If it was a 16-year-old white American/European boy/girl filmed being killed by laughing armed staff in a Mexican airport for smuggling drugs, the outcry of institutional corruption and brutality would be unbelievable.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Killing a mule's not going to help
They might even have been able to get some info out of him if they hadn't fucked up
S
Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
That's an horrific story.
I'm getting less and less shocked every time American law enforcement officials walk away free after killing, or directly causing the death of people.
A 16 year old boy, for god sake.
You cold-hearted bastard.
I'm getting less and less shocked every time American law enforcement officials walk away free after killing, or directly causing the death of people.
A 16 year old boy, for god sake.
You cold-hearted bastard.
QuicheFontaine
Member
The mule killed themselves. And the border guards stopped that container at least from coming into the country. They can't exactly go into Mexico and stop drug production at the source.
They could have just tested the stuff and found out it was drugs but nope had to have a kid kill themselves to confirm their suspicions. This is not a win for America or the "war on drugs" pretty fucked up that your framing it as a positive outcome.
AlexFlame116
Member
Are you serious? The mule killed himself? Is that how much his life was worth?
If the guards were doing their job they would be actually testing the liquid using their technology. Yes it would be a longer wait but it would have helped prevented the loss of a life. But no they acted like morons. They should have at least stopped at the first sip of they "had" to make him drink it.
I cannot believe you're okay with this. Your wife drinking the water does not immediately overrule other circumstances.
IlGialloMondadori
Member
People defending this are insane. The agents should be charged with his murder.
Kid made a bad decision, but we don't know what his choices were. Some dumb poor kid possibly coerced at worse, paid poorly and promised some way to get out of poverty at best, should have been given the benefit of the doubt. I'm not saying no penalty, but I'm saying give him a way to improve his life and situation. Help him, if you can.
Kid made a bad decision, but we don't know what his choices were. Some dumb poor kid possibly coerced at worse, paid poorly and promised some way to get out of poverty at best, should have been given the benefit of the doubt. I'm not saying no penalty, but I'm saying give him a way to improve his life and situation. Help him, if you can.
Other potential consequences to this would have been a teenager surviving an encounter with US law enforcement and potentially giving information on who his contact in the US is. Customs officials all over the world manage to detain suspected criminals without suggesting they kill themselves (while they watch and laugh) every single day. Would you agree that, once they had seized the kid and the liquid, they could easily have handled this in a manner that didn't have potentially fatal consequences?
IlGialloMondadori
Member
How about laying the blame on the agents that urged a kid to drink something that would kill him.
Stopping this harmful stuff into the country has done, what? Has the street value of meth risen considerably? No. Because the war on drugs is just not working at all, that's why. This is a complex situation, it's not some simple black and white, "Oh drugs, he deserved to die lol."
Probably both scared of the drugs gang that supplied it, scared of the border control officers, didn't know how lethal such a small dose was, thought it was his only way out and panicked. Not giving suspects facing serious consequences an opportunity to do something stupid is why custody officers remove people's shoelaces and belts, nevermind handing them back their 2 litres of liquid meth.
S
Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
Probably because he was scared, desperate and 16 years old.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
All right, I think I'm done with this thread
Agreed! I say all 16 years old boys getting caught with suspected drugs should be forced to drink them because it will make those hardened criminals think twice! A clap for law enforcement keeping our streets safe and using the path of least resistence to protect our shores from teenage drug dealers, amright? That 16 year old surrounded by border police who could arrest him shouldnt have been intimidated and shouldda just come clean and ignored the guys with the guns commands. If my 16 year old kid got caught doing something similar I expect the same treatment; death will surely teach em not to make the same mistake again!
Sad Affleck
Member
At this point I just assume that all law enforcement training in the US is sitting the trainees in a room and making them watch Jack Bauer, Dirty Harry and Charles Bronson 24/7.
Sad. Such a young age to go. And a warning to all really. To overzealous border guards (who I have to assume for my own sanity would not have expected this outcome) and those who traffic in substances like this. I wouldn't be able to watch the video. The description of his reaction and his words is horrible enough. I can remember being an impressionable teenager desperate to have my own life and make my own money. The real criminals here are the ones who helped a 16 year old risk his life this way. It's just sad.
Do you have any idea how dangerous any given substance is to drink? Like, all of them? Can you give me a list of everything that's fatal and everything that isn't, off the top of your head?
You think this kid knew drinking it was going to kill him? He's a 16 year old.
The people telling him to drink it are trained professionals. They should know better. They have a responsibility to know better.
Frankly, American police and border agents scare me so much that if they told me to chug something sight unseen at the border I'd probably do it too. Better odds than getting shot.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
In most other civilised countries this would dominate the news for months and cause a huge uproar and a radical restructuring of their border control, much quicker than the respective country's legislative usually works. In the US it's just a random headline, nothing will be remotedly change and the resposible people will secretly seen as heroes among their colleagues and many normal folks.
Sad Affleck
Member
Or you'd have to be a scared-as-shit teenager trying to escape poverty with no knowledge of how dangerous that stuff really is.
The standard procedure for this sort of thing needs to change. And the age of the suspect shouldn't matter. In situations where smugglers don't come clean and refuse to drink the liquid, they are either super ignorant of the danger or they're reacting poorly in what's a high stress situation for them.
If you're in a position of authority, like a border agent, don't play lethal games with someone else's life. Irrational human behaviour is always a possibility when someone is suspected of anything criminal. Child or not. If there is no practical way to test a liquid, then confiscate and destroy it. Tough shit for everyone else and their precious $1 real juice. That takes less effort and that level of destruction is probably faster than the production rate of whatever source.
They should posthumously charge the kid with possession and transportation of a controlled substance. That'll show him!
SuperBowser
Member
I'm genuinely shocked half the posters here cannot see what is wrong with the officers' actions.
At the order of the border patrol agent. They should have had charges pressed against them. They have a certain level of responsibility and they are held at a higher standard than a fucking 16 year old boy.
That you can't acknowledge how terrible this is, and your defending those scumbags speaks volumes of your character.
Souldriver
Member
The US has a horrible law enforcement problem.
There is a defense force for everything.
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