Post by Redler Red7 on May 5, 2012 9:04:20 GMT -5
The original thread can be found here: forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=25397 (requires you to be logged into a Sonic Retro account)
Post 1
This is cross-posted from a Sonic Stadium discussion. It's long, but very important to read. Did you know that in the United States, it is perfectly legal for a child's parents to arrange to have their son/daughter kidnapped, forced into isolation, and tortured? It is. When you hear people talking about "boot camps" or "corrective facilities", this is what it can be like.
Teens have been hogtied, forced to eat their own vomit, made to sit in isolation in their own urine and feces, starved, shoved into fire ant nests, and dragged from behind vans. Now, I know people always blame the parents for sending their kids off to these places in the first place, but oftentimes, the parents are just misinformed and desperate. Brochures for these facilities show swimming pools and smiling counselors, not restraints and isolation chambers. Parents can also choose to have their progeny sent off to a "camp" in Jamaica, where:
The only moment a student is alone is in a toilet cubicle; but a chaperone is standing right outside the door, and knows what he or she went in to do, because when students raise their hand for permission to go, they must hold up one finger for 'a number one', and two for 'a number two'.
Corporal punishment is not practised, but staff administer 'restraint'. One student explains: 'It's a completely degrading, painful experience. You could get it for raising your voice or pointing your finger. You know you're going to get it when three Jamaicans walk in and say, "Take off your watch." They pin you down in a five-point formation and that's when they start twisting and pulling your limbs, grinding your ankles.'
Before sending their teen to Tranquility, parents are advised that it might be prudent to keep their plan a secret, and employ an approved escort service to break the news. The first most teenagers hear of Tranquility is therefore when they are woken from their beds at home at 4am by guards, who place them in a van, handcuffed if necessary, drive them to an airport and fly them to Jamaica. The child will not be allowed to speak to his or her parents for up to six months, or see them for up to a year.
... no child arrives at Tranquility with a release date. Students are judged ready to leave only when they have demonstrated a sincere belief that they deserved to be sent here, and that the programme has, in fact, saved their life. They must renounce their old self, espouse the programme's belief system, display gratitude for their salvation, and police fellow students who resist.
...Students who fail to grasp the formula are forcefully encouraged to get the message. One girl currently has to wear a sign around her neck at all times, which reads: 'I've been in this programme for three years, and I am still pulling crap.'
When most children first arrive they find it difficult to believe that they have no alternative but to submit. In shock, frightened and angry, many simply refuse to obey. This is when they discover the alternative. Guards take them (if necessary by force) to a small bare room and make them (again by force if necessary) lie flat on their face, arms by their sides, on the tiled floor. Watched by a guard, they must remain lying face down, forbidden to speak or move a muscle except for 10 minutes every hour, when they may sit up and stretch before resuming the position. Modest meals are brought to them, and at night they sleep on the floor of the corridor outside under electric light and the gaze of a guard. At dawn they resume the position.
This is known officially as being 'in OP' - Observation Placement - and more casually as 'lying on your face'. Any level student can be sent to OP, and it automatically demotes them to level 1 and zero points. Every 24 hours, students in OP are reviewed by staff, and only sincere and unconditional contrition will earn their release. If they are unrepentant? 'Well, they get another 24 hours.'
One boy told me he'd spent six months in OP.
I didn't think this could be true, but it transpired this was not even exceptional. 'Oh no,' says Kay. 'The record is actually held by a female.' On and off, she spent 18 months lying on her face.
This all sounds like a major abuse of human rights yet the Jamaican govt seems not bothered about the place so long as it obeys local sanitary regulations. The institution has 49% guardianship rights over the kids and the parents approve so the US authorities won't intervene either.
And why would any parent, no matter how desperate, do this to their children? Here's the kicker: the parents are brainwashed too.
Parents cannot visit their child at Tranquility until they, too, have attended a seminar in the States. They attend further seminars together with their child and many consider this to be the programme's most valuable attribute. 'Awesome,' marvels Jim Mozingo, 'mind-blowing.' But this dual approach ensures that the only people outside Tranquility with whom students are allowed contact become insiders, too, co-opted into Tranquility's special language and belief system. And parents have a financial incentive to believe and proselytise. For every new customer they can recruit, a month's fees for their own child are waived.
Here's a chilling video made by a teen who survived the Jamaican camp.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwUmc_Aoykc
And as if abuse wasn't bad enough, hundreds, if not thousands, of children have been killed in these camps. In most cases, no charges were filed because "it was the kid's fault". They include:
Alex Harris, age 13, who died of thirst after being forced to run for miles. Numerous times that day, the boy begged for water, complained of pain, and even tried to drink from water fountain before allegedly being dragged away from it.
An anonymous Wisconsin girl who died after after being restrained at a mental health facility. Her crime: blowing bubbles in her milk and moving during a time-out.
Martin Lee Anderson, 14, was beaten to death. Charges were filed, but the jury acquitted everyone involved.
Omega Leach, 17, strangled to death. After refusing to leave his room, Omega was pushed into the hallway, thrown to the ground, and choked. The staffer then forced him back into his room, where eyewitnesses reported that he slammed Omega's head into a wall and pinned him facedown on the floor for seven minutes.
Nicholaus Contreraz, 16. The teenager spent the last week of his life complaining of chest pain and difficulty breathing, but had been identified by the staff as a malingerer and punished more when he complained. When the boy sought medical attention for his condition, the camp nurse repeatedly sent him back out with approval to engage in the stringent exercise required of troublesome juveniles. His condition worsened and he began to defecate on himself and vomit frequently. Staff belittled the youth, made him sleep in soiled underwear, made him eat dinner while sitting on a toilet and ordered him to carry a trash basket filled with his soiled clothes and his own vomit. He eventually collapsed and died. The medical examiner ruled Contreraz died of empyema, a buildup of fluid in the lining between his lungs and chest cavity. He was also suffering from strep and staph infections, pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. The coroner noted 71 cuts and bruises on the boy's body. All criminal charges against the staff were dropped.
Paul Choy celebrated his 16th birthday brain dead and on life support. Before he died, a nurse observed injuries consistent with anal rape. Choy was at a center called Rite of Passage, being forced to sit on a wooden platform in the cold for five hours as punishment for failing to finish a five-mile run. That's five hours of shivering and without bathroom breaks. Finally, in reckless desperation, he gave his keepers just the signal they were waiting for. Two staff members restrained him in a full Nelson for about ten minutes, after which time they noticed he wasn't breathing. To make matters worse, a staff member had this to say about the incident:
... Well, you can't just let these punk kids ignore the rules, can you? You gotta put 'em in their place, right? If they're out of control, you restrain 'em, right? When they don't cooperate, you gotta make 'em cooperate, right? And when they come lookin' for trouble, you give 'em trouble. They ain't in boot camp to be mollycoddled, you know, but to learn respect for authority. And I'm not their goddam granny who's gonna give 'em hot coco when they need their butts kicked...
In addition, we have:
Aaron Bacon, 16, abused and neglected until he died of acute peritonitis - an ulcerous meltdown that gradually ate holes in his lower intestine. When his mother went to identify his body,
"His face was unrecognizable," the Phoenix woman sobbed at a hearing in Utah last year. "He had these sunken cheeks, and his eyes, he looked like a skeleton, his hands were all bone. He was literally bruised, black and blue, from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. He had sores between his legs, open sores. The bottoms of his feet, I don't know how anyone could have walked or hiked on them. "His legs were like toothpicks, his hipbones stuck way out, his ribs—he looked like a concentration-camp victim. The only way we were even able to recognize him was a childhood scar above his right eye." I began screaming, because something was terribly wrong."
Michelle Sutton, died of dehydration after being denied water.
Gina Score, forced to run to the point of hyperthermia.
Timithy Thomas, age 9, suffocated while being restrained.
Randy Steele, 9, suffocated while being restrained.
Ian Thomas, 14, died of heatstroke.
Anthony Haynes, 14, died after being dehydrated and forced to eat dirt.
Chase Moody, 17, suffocated while being restrained.
Mikie Garcia, 12, suffocated while being restrained.
Faith Finley, 17, choked on her own vomit while being restrained.
Travis Parker, 13, restrained by three men facedown on the ground for an hour and a half before he stopped breathing. He asked for his asthma inhaler after the first 15 minutes, but staff refused to give it to him. They were later fired and arrested for felony murder.
Linda Harris, 14, was found by paramedics unconscious, with scraped elbows, blood in her mouth, and in physical restraints when they arrived at a facility to try to resuscitate her.
Carlton Eugene Thomas, 17, suffered cardiac arrest after a staff member choked him with a restraining hold. His body was battered and bruised.
Dawnne Takeuchi, thrown from a semi-truck. The VisionQuest counselor driving the supply vehicle was convicted of careless driving and was ordered to pay a mere $270 in restitution.
Andrew McClain, 11, died while being restrained in a Portland, Conn., psychiatric hospital.
Mark Soares, 16, died after workers put him in a headlock at a home for troubled youths in Marlboro, where he was placed because of a history of committing verbal and physical assaults.
Casey Collier, 17, died of asphyxiation after six hospital orderlies restrained him by sitting on his back, legs and shoulders.
Rest in peace.
So why did I cross-post this long-winded topic? Because the only way to end such a sickening practice is to spread the word. I suggest that everyone here cross-posts a topic about this on every message board you are subscribed to, and encourage the readers there to do the same. Spread the word, make it viral, Twitter, Facebook, anything. Make it impossible to ignore. Go!
Post 2
I suppose the real part that gets people upset is that some of these camps exist for the sole purpose of brainwashing teens to "cure" them of being gay. A company in Utah named "Teen Escort Services" is regularly contracted to kidnap LGBT teenagers in the middle of the night and take them to these "re-education camps", where their spirits are broken. It's swept under the rug because the companies involved "donated" large sums of money to many politicians and the leader of WWASP is a close personal friend of many politicians, including Mitt Romney. And as you know, Utah is full of Mormons. Not that I'm knocking Mormonism, but some of them are a bit extremist, just like how every religion has a few crazies. So if you're not a "perfect Mormon", it's entirely possible that you could be kidnapped and hauled away for re-education. And when I say "re-education", I mean brainwashing. The few videos that have surfaced from the insides of these camps show kids that literally look like zombies. Their eyes are just...dead. I suggest reading Eric Norwood's true story, "Trapped in a Mormon Gulag". It's really sick and twisted. Poor Eric was taken when he was 15. Here's a few excerpts from his story:
After he finished beating and bludgeoning submissiveness into me, he pulled me up by the rope that was lassoed around my waist. The wool army blanket I had fashioned as a skirt had shifted askew and I stood there in my boxers bleeding from my nose, humiliated.
The work crew was depraved. When they didn't have us facing the wall for hours at a time we were digging ditches with spoons, only to fill them back in again. We made huge piles of heavy rocks taken from the field, the field that both surrounded and contained us, only to be told to move the massive mound to another location. They worked us in ways redolent of Stalin's Gulag.
They instruct parents to ignore any claims of abuse from their children. They call any complaints from children a manipulation tool – “fear factor” – and instruct parents to be wary of the “tactic” they say they encounter most. There were also no phones to call the police. No nurses or medical examiners to talk to. No government authorities to check in on us.
Welcome to 21st century America.
Post 3
I've found some new information on these hellholes. First of all, they still exist. What happens is that when a facility is shut down, the greedy owners tend to run off to another state and set up shop again under a different name. You'd think someone would, you know, be arrested for abusing children, but these guys are clever. They have almost complete legal impunity because the parents are typically required (or perhaps tricked into) signing away most of the custody of their own children. From that point on, the facility can do whatever they want. If by some offchance a cop does show up, it's easy enough to claim that the child brought it upon himself. Besides, they have made so much money off the suffering of children that they can do whatever they want.
Also, they don't have to be licensed, and in many cases, none of the staff are even remotely qualified to provide therapy. There is very little external regulation of these facilities, and the lying sleazeballs who own the facilities have even figured out a way around being inspected by the state: simply operate under the guise of a "religious organization", and the government can't touch you. Yep, you read that right. All you have to do is call yourself a "Christian Academy" and you can do whatever you want with complete impunity from the law. Not to mention that the mention of Christianity implies morals, which reels in more unwitting victims who feel safer placing their child into the facilities' "care".
And really, I think the parents are the victims here. Only the lowest of the low prey on the weak and defenseless, and that's exactly what these camps do. They claim to be boarding schools or even therapeutic ranches designed to provide a nurturing environment to kids with special needs, like Autism and Aspergers. A few parents though it would just be a fun summer-camp type thing, a way for their daughter to "be alone and find herself." That list of kids who were killed at these camps? Some of them had disabilities. They died for "acting out" in ways that were physically beyond their control. Most of the time, the parents have been taken in by a slickly-designed scam. It's not like these programs are announcing, "Hey, we like to beat your children and brainwash them into submission!" No, they have expertly-designed, totally fake websites. For example, take Diamond Ranch Academy.
Looks legit, right? They even fooled (or bribed) Dr. Drew! But if you loook deeper and do some research, you'll find that Diamond Ranch was started by the same group of people that formerly operated an abusive facility in Idaho, and owned by a suspected child molester. A web search yields nothing but good reviews (likely planted by the facility or brainwashed parents), but then you read the ones that have been "filtered" for being "inappropriate".
"I was able to first hand witness the physical abuse of a mentally challenged 12 year old. The staff would "restrain" him for not doing as they told him to. They rubbed his face in gravel. He was a tiny kid, and calmed down easily when talked to by another student. Ricky Diaz, one of the officials, uses his power to intimidate kids into doing whatever he wants them to."
"Ok let me start out by saying this place was HELL for me and everyone else I know that went there. If anything it made things worse then better. I got sent there on April 15, 2008 and graduated May 15, 2009. I was there exactly 13 months. As people said that a kid died there. That kid was my best friend. His name was Jim. now I don't know exactly how he died or any of the details. All I do know is how the staff there treated him. It was exactly a week after he got back to the ranch from a home visit. My ENTIRE dorm woke up around 4 am thinking someone was showering. We found out that Jim was puking over the side of his bed so much it sounded like a shower running! So obviously he was sick. The staff then made him sit there for over 45 minutes cleaning up his own vomit with nothing other then paper towel. no mop no cleaning supplies just a paper towel. In the morning when we all went to breakfast he was sent to sick bay and that was the last time any of the students saw him. Now it wasnt DRAs fault that he died. but he was sick and they treated him so horribly! making him clean up his own vomit at 4 in the morning, while he was moaning and groaning and throwing up some more! Thats that story. Let me get into more of my story now. When I went there I had long hair. I got an extra week in homeless (the beginning part of the program where you can eat nothing but rice, and aren't allowed to talk for at least 2 weeks) just because I didnt want to cut my hair! does that sound reasonable?! Also I was on run watch. That is where they take your shoes and give you flip flops so it is harder to run away. The reason they put me on run watch? well which one do u want? The reason they told me, the reason they told my mom, or the truth??? So they told me that my mom requested it. Later on in my program I found out that they told my mom it was because I tried to run away! When I went there I was a little fat chubby kid. even if I wanted to run away I knew I couldnt so why would I even try?! Now for the real reason. When I found out what they had told my mom I asked Ricky (program director and son of the owner) why I was on run watch in homeless. His answer? "You were on run watch because we felt like putting you on run watch"...... DRA is also physically and mentally abusive. One time I got thrown face first into the rocks and restrained because I said "screw you" to a kid. I didnt touch him, I didnt threaten him, all I said was screw you. The only reason they stopped restraining me was because my arm made a snapping noise and they were afraid they would break it. They were mentally abusive in the fact that I STILL have nightmares about that place!!! anyway let me talk about it in general and not about my story. I saw kids there that were not there for drug issues but when left got addicted to hardcore drugs because other kids there were talking about how great they were. I do not know I single person that went to dra that HASNT relapsed on what ever they were there for. "
A group of survivors started a Facebook group in an attempt to shut the place down. Why will nobody listen to their cries? If more people knew about places like this, surely the firestorm of criticism will shut them down, or at least provide better monitoring. I mean, the Kony thing set the whole world on fire, but we turn a blind eye when it's in our own country. We must face the truth and set these kids free. The simple solution is to hold these monsters accountable for their actions and make sure that they can never harm another child. Make sure that institutions are randomly inspected by an unbiased group, preferably with ties to law enforcement. Let there be no excuses for a child's death.
I can't hit the "edit post" button (must be my outdated browser), but I'd also like to add that anyone interested in learing more about this topic should consider visiting Fornits. It's a great resource, but visiting it may cause you to lose faith in humanity. You have been warned.
Post 1
This is cross-posted from a Sonic Stadium discussion. It's long, but very important to read. Did you know that in the United States, it is perfectly legal for a child's parents to arrange to have their son/daughter kidnapped, forced into isolation, and tortured? It is. When you hear people talking about "boot camps" or "corrective facilities", this is what it can be like.
Teens have been hogtied, forced to eat their own vomit, made to sit in isolation in their own urine and feces, starved, shoved into fire ant nests, and dragged from behind vans. Now, I know people always blame the parents for sending their kids off to these places in the first place, but oftentimes, the parents are just misinformed and desperate. Brochures for these facilities show swimming pools and smiling counselors, not restraints and isolation chambers. Parents can also choose to have their progeny sent off to a "camp" in Jamaica, where:
The only moment a student is alone is in a toilet cubicle; but a chaperone is standing right outside the door, and knows what he or she went in to do, because when students raise their hand for permission to go, they must hold up one finger for 'a number one', and two for 'a number two'.
Corporal punishment is not practised, but staff administer 'restraint'. One student explains: 'It's a completely degrading, painful experience. You could get it for raising your voice or pointing your finger. You know you're going to get it when three Jamaicans walk in and say, "Take off your watch." They pin you down in a five-point formation and that's when they start twisting and pulling your limbs, grinding your ankles.'
Before sending their teen to Tranquility, parents are advised that it might be prudent to keep their plan a secret, and employ an approved escort service to break the news. The first most teenagers hear of Tranquility is therefore when they are woken from their beds at home at 4am by guards, who place them in a van, handcuffed if necessary, drive them to an airport and fly them to Jamaica. The child will not be allowed to speak to his or her parents for up to six months, or see them for up to a year.
... no child arrives at Tranquility with a release date. Students are judged ready to leave only when they have demonstrated a sincere belief that they deserved to be sent here, and that the programme has, in fact, saved their life. They must renounce their old self, espouse the programme's belief system, display gratitude for their salvation, and police fellow students who resist.
...Students who fail to grasp the formula are forcefully encouraged to get the message. One girl currently has to wear a sign around her neck at all times, which reads: 'I've been in this programme for three years, and I am still pulling crap.'
When most children first arrive they find it difficult to believe that they have no alternative but to submit. In shock, frightened and angry, many simply refuse to obey. This is when they discover the alternative. Guards take them (if necessary by force) to a small bare room and make them (again by force if necessary) lie flat on their face, arms by their sides, on the tiled floor. Watched by a guard, they must remain lying face down, forbidden to speak or move a muscle except for 10 minutes every hour, when they may sit up and stretch before resuming the position. Modest meals are brought to them, and at night they sleep on the floor of the corridor outside under electric light and the gaze of a guard. At dawn they resume the position.
This is known officially as being 'in OP' - Observation Placement - and more casually as 'lying on your face'. Any level student can be sent to OP, and it automatically demotes them to level 1 and zero points. Every 24 hours, students in OP are reviewed by staff, and only sincere and unconditional contrition will earn their release. If they are unrepentant? 'Well, they get another 24 hours.'
One boy told me he'd spent six months in OP.
I didn't think this could be true, but it transpired this was not even exceptional. 'Oh no,' says Kay. 'The record is actually held by a female.' On and off, she spent 18 months lying on her face.
This all sounds like a major abuse of human rights yet the Jamaican govt seems not bothered about the place so long as it obeys local sanitary regulations. The institution has 49% guardianship rights over the kids and the parents approve so the US authorities won't intervene either.
And why would any parent, no matter how desperate, do this to their children? Here's the kicker: the parents are brainwashed too.
Parents cannot visit their child at Tranquility until they, too, have attended a seminar in the States. They attend further seminars together with their child and many consider this to be the programme's most valuable attribute. 'Awesome,' marvels Jim Mozingo, 'mind-blowing.' But this dual approach ensures that the only people outside Tranquility with whom students are allowed contact become insiders, too, co-opted into Tranquility's special language and belief system. And parents have a financial incentive to believe and proselytise. For every new customer they can recruit, a month's fees for their own child are waived.
Here's a chilling video made by a teen who survived the Jamaican camp.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwUmc_Aoykc
And as if abuse wasn't bad enough, hundreds, if not thousands, of children have been killed in these camps. In most cases, no charges were filed because "it was the kid's fault". They include:
Alex Harris, age 13, who died of thirst after being forced to run for miles. Numerous times that day, the boy begged for water, complained of pain, and even tried to drink from water fountain before allegedly being dragged away from it.
An anonymous Wisconsin girl who died after after being restrained at a mental health facility. Her crime: blowing bubbles in her milk and moving during a time-out.
Martin Lee Anderson, 14, was beaten to death. Charges were filed, but the jury acquitted everyone involved.
Omega Leach, 17, strangled to death. After refusing to leave his room, Omega was pushed into the hallway, thrown to the ground, and choked. The staffer then forced him back into his room, where eyewitnesses reported that he slammed Omega's head into a wall and pinned him facedown on the floor for seven minutes.
Nicholaus Contreraz, 16. The teenager spent the last week of his life complaining of chest pain and difficulty breathing, but had been identified by the staff as a malingerer and punished more when he complained. When the boy sought medical attention for his condition, the camp nurse repeatedly sent him back out with approval to engage in the stringent exercise required of troublesome juveniles. His condition worsened and he began to defecate on himself and vomit frequently. Staff belittled the youth, made him sleep in soiled underwear, made him eat dinner while sitting on a toilet and ordered him to carry a trash basket filled with his soiled clothes and his own vomit. He eventually collapsed and died. The medical examiner ruled Contreraz died of empyema, a buildup of fluid in the lining between his lungs and chest cavity. He was also suffering from strep and staph infections, pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. The coroner noted 71 cuts and bruises on the boy's body. All criminal charges against the staff were dropped.
Paul Choy celebrated his 16th birthday brain dead and on life support. Before he died, a nurse observed injuries consistent with anal rape. Choy was at a center called Rite of Passage, being forced to sit on a wooden platform in the cold for five hours as punishment for failing to finish a five-mile run. That's five hours of shivering and without bathroom breaks. Finally, in reckless desperation, he gave his keepers just the signal they were waiting for. Two staff members restrained him in a full Nelson for about ten minutes, after which time they noticed he wasn't breathing. To make matters worse, a staff member had this to say about the incident:
... Well, you can't just let these punk kids ignore the rules, can you? You gotta put 'em in their place, right? If they're out of control, you restrain 'em, right? When they don't cooperate, you gotta make 'em cooperate, right? And when they come lookin' for trouble, you give 'em trouble. They ain't in boot camp to be mollycoddled, you know, but to learn respect for authority. And I'm not their goddam granny who's gonna give 'em hot coco when they need their butts kicked...
In addition, we have:
Aaron Bacon, 16, abused and neglected until he died of acute peritonitis - an ulcerous meltdown that gradually ate holes in his lower intestine. When his mother went to identify his body,
"His face was unrecognizable," the Phoenix woman sobbed at a hearing in Utah last year. "He had these sunken cheeks, and his eyes, he looked like a skeleton, his hands were all bone. He was literally bruised, black and blue, from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. He had sores between his legs, open sores. The bottoms of his feet, I don't know how anyone could have walked or hiked on them. "His legs were like toothpicks, his hipbones stuck way out, his ribs—he looked like a concentration-camp victim. The only way we were even able to recognize him was a childhood scar above his right eye." I began screaming, because something was terribly wrong."
Michelle Sutton, died of dehydration after being denied water.
Gina Score, forced to run to the point of hyperthermia.
Timithy Thomas, age 9, suffocated while being restrained.
Randy Steele, 9, suffocated while being restrained.
Ian Thomas, 14, died of heatstroke.
Anthony Haynes, 14, died after being dehydrated and forced to eat dirt.
Chase Moody, 17, suffocated while being restrained.
Mikie Garcia, 12, suffocated while being restrained.
Faith Finley, 17, choked on her own vomit while being restrained.
Travis Parker, 13, restrained by three men facedown on the ground for an hour and a half before he stopped breathing. He asked for his asthma inhaler after the first 15 minutes, but staff refused to give it to him. They were later fired and arrested for felony murder.
Linda Harris, 14, was found by paramedics unconscious, with scraped elbows, blood in her mouth, and in physical restraints when they arrived at a facility to try to resuscitate her.
Carlton Eugene Thomas, 17, suffered cardiac arrest after a staff member choked him with a restraining hold. His body was battered and bruised.
Dawnne Takeuchi, thrown from a semi-truck. The VisionQuest counselor driving the supply vehicle was convicted of careless driving and was ordered to pay a mere $270 in restitution.
Andrew McClain, 11, died while being restrained in a Portland, Conn., psychiatric hospital.
Mark Soares, 16, died after workers put him in a headlock at a home for troubled youths in Marlboro, where he was placed because of a history of committing verbal and physical assaults.
Casey Collier, 17, died of asphyxiation after six hospital orderlies restrained him by sitting on his back, legs and shoulders.
Rest in peace.
So why did I cross-post this long-winded topic? Because the only way to end such a sickening practice is to spread the word. I suggest that everyone here cross-posts a topic about this on every message board you are subscribed to, and encourage the readers there to do the same. Spread the word, make it viral, Twitter, Facebook, anything. Make it impossible to ignore. Go!
Post 2
I suppose the real part that gets people upset is that some of these camps exist for the sole purpose of brainwashing teens to "cure" them of being gay. A company in Utah named "Teen Escort Services" is regularly contracted to kidnap LGBT teenagers in the middle of the night and take them to these "re-education camps", where their spirits are broken. It's swept under the rug because the companies involved "donated" large sums of money to many politicians and the leader of WWASP is a close personal friend of many politicians, including Mitt Romney. And as you know, Utah is full of Mormons. Not that I'm knocking Mormonism, but some of them are a bit extremist, just like how every religion has a few crazies. So if you're not a "perfect Mormon", it's entirely possible that you could be kidnapped and hauled away for re-education. And when I say "re-education", I mean brainwashing. The few videos that have surfaced from the insides of these camps show kids that literally look like zombies. Their eyes are just...dead. I suggest reading Eric Norwood's true story, "Trapped in a Mormon Gulag". It's really sick and twisted. Poor Eric was taken when he was 15. Here's a few excerpts from his story:
After he finished beating and bludgeoning submissiveness into me, he pulled me up by the rope that was lassoed around my waist. The wool army blanket I had fashioned as a skirt had shifted askew and I stood there in my boxers bleeding from my nose, humiliated.
The work crew was depraved. When they didn't have us facing the wall for hours at a time we were digging ditches with spoons, only to fill them back in again. We made huge piles of heavy rocks taken from the field, the field that both surrounded and contained us, only to be told to move the massive mound to another location. They worked us in ways redolent of Stalin's Gulag.
They instruct parents to ignore any claims of abuse from their children. They call any complaints from children a manipulation tool – “fear factor” – and instruct parents to be wary of the “tactic” they say they encounter most. There were also no phones to call the police. No nurses or medical examiners to talk to. No government authorities to check in on us.
Welcome to 21st century America.
Post 3
I've found some new information on these hellholes. First of all, they still exist. What happens is that when a facility is shut down, the greedy owners tend to run off to another state and set up shop again under a different name. You'd think someone would, you know, be arrested for abusing children, but these guys are clever. They have almost complete legal impunity because the parents are typically required (or perhaps tricked into) signing away most of the custody of their own children. From that point on, the facility can do whatever they want. If by some offchance a cop does show up, it's easy enough to claim that the child brought it upon himself. Besides, they have made so much money off the suffering of children that they can do whatever they want.
Also, they don't have to be licensed, and in many cases, none of the staff are even remotely qualified to provide therapy. There is very little external regulation of these facilities, and the lying sleazeballs who own the facilities have even figured out a way around being inspected by the state: simply operate under the guise of a "religious organization", and the government can't touch you. Yep, you read that right. All you have to do is call yourself a "Christian Academy" and you can do whatever you want with complete impunity from the law. Not to mention that the mention of Christianity implies morals, which reels in more unwitting victims who feel safer placing their child into the facilities' "care".
And really, I think the parents are the victims here. Only the lowest of the low prey on the weak and defenseless, and that's exactly what these camps do. They claim to be boarding schools or even therapeutic ranches designed to provide a nurturing environment to kids with special needs, like Autism and Aspergers. A few parents though it would just be a fun summer-camp type thing, a way for their daughter to "be alone and find herself." That list of kids who were killed at these camps? Some of them had disabilities. They died for "acting out" in ways that were physically beyond their control. Most of the time, the parents have been taken in by a slickly-designed scam. It's not like these programs are announcing, "Hey, we like to beat your children and brainwash them into submission!" No, they have expertly-designed, totally fake websites. For example, take Diamond Ranch Academy.
Looks legit, right? They even fooled (or bribed) Dr. Drew! But if you loook deeper and do some research, you'll find that Diamond Ranch was started by the same group of people that formerly operated an abusive facility in Idaho, and owned by a suspected child molester. A web search yields nothing but good reviews (likely planted by the facility or brainwashed parents), but then you read the ones that have been "filtered" for being "inappropriate".
"I was able to first hand witness the physical abuse of a mentally challenged 12 year old. The staff would "restrain" him for not doing as they told him to. They rubbed his face in gravel. He was a tiny kid, and calmed down easily when talked to by another student. Ricky Diaz, one of the officials, uses his power to intimidate kids into doing whatever he wants them to."
"Ok let me start out by saying this place was HELL for me and everyone else I know that went there. If anything it made things worse then better. I got sent there on April 15, 2008 and graduated May 15, 2009. I was there exactly 13 months. As people said that a kid died there. That kid was my best friend. His name was Jim. now I don't know exactly how he died or any of the details. All I do know is how the staff there treated him. It was exactly a week after he got back to the ranch from a home visit. My ENTIRE dorm woke up around 4 am thinking someone was showering. We found out that Jim was puking over the side of his bed so much it sounded like a shower running! So obviously he was sick. The staff then made him sit there for over 45 minutes cleaning up his own vomit with nothing other then paper towel. no mop no cleaning supplies just a paper towel. In the morning when we all went to breakfast he was sent to sick bay and that was the last time any of the students saw him. Now it wasnt DRAs fault that he died. but he was sick and they treated him so horribly! making him clean up his own vomit at 4 in the morning, while he was moaning and groaning and throwing up some more! Thats that story. Let me get into more of my story now. When I went there I had long hair. I got an extra week in homeless (the beginning part of the program where you can eat nothing but rice, and aren't allowed to talk for at least 2 weeks) just because I didnt want to cut my hair! does that sound reasonable?! Also I was on run watch. That is where they take your shoes and give you flip flops so it is harder to run away. The reason they put me on run watch? well which one do u want? The reason they told me, the reason they told my mom, or the truth??? So they told me that my mom requested it. Later on in my program I found out that they told my mom it was because I tried to run away! When I went there I was a little fat chubby kid. even if I wanted to run away I knew I couldnt so why would I even try?! Now for the real reason. When I found out what they had told my mom I asked Ricky (program director and son of the owner) why I was on run watch in homeless. His answer? "You were on run watch because we felt like putting you on run watch"...... DRA is also physically and mentally abusive. One time I got thrown face first into the rocks and restrained because I said "screw you" to a kid. I didnt touch him, I didnt threaten him, all I said was screw you. The only reason they stopped restraining me was because my arm made a snapping noise and they were afraid they would break it. They were mentally abusive in the fact that I STILL have nightmares about that place!!! anyway let me talk about it in general and not about my story. I saw kids there that were not there for drug issues but when left got addicted to hardcore drugs because other kids there were talking about how great they were. I do not know I single person that went to dra that HASNT relapsed on what ever they were there for. "
A group of survivors started a Facebook group in an attempt to shut the place down. Why will nobody listen to their cries? If more people knew about places like this, surely the firestorm of criticism will shut them down, or at least provide better monitoring. I mean, the Kony thing set the whole world on fire, but we turn a blind eye when it's in our own country. We must face the truth and set these kids free. The simple solution is to hold these monsters accountable for their actions and make sure that they can never harm another child. Make sure that institutions are randomly inspected by an unbiased group, preferably with ties to law enforcement. Let there be no excuses for a child's death.
I can't hit the "edit post" button (must be my outdated browser), but I'd also like to add that anyone interested in learing more about this topic should consider visiting Fornits. It's a great resource, but visiting it may cause you to lose faith in humanity. You have been warned.
Makes me so angry right now
