MORE CAICA NEWS: Missouri boot camp under national scrutiny

MO boot camp under nat'l scrutiny
Posted: Thursday, October 04, 2007 at 4:20 p.m.

KANSAS CITY, MO. (AP) -- Former employees of a northwest Missouri boot camp where a teenager died say they have been questioned by federal investigators.

The workers say they were told the Thayer Learning Center is a key focus of an investigation into boot camps for troubled teens.

An attorney for the facility says Thayer officials have fully cooperated with investigators from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The investigators recently visited the facility in the town of Kidder and interviewed students.

The General Accountability Office is the investigative arm of Congress. The investigation into residential treatment programs for children came at the request of Congressman George Miller of California.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Boot camp trial begins

Article
October 4, 2007
Medical testimony dominates Day 1
By David Angier

PANAMA CITY

There were gasps and quiet moans Wednesday from audience members as they watched segments of the black and white video of boot camp employees striking and manhandling a limp Martin Lee Anderson.

“Oh, my God” often was repeated by some in the thick crowd of onlookers as prosecutor Pam Bondi played short excerpts from the video of Anderson’s first day at the boot camp on Jan. 5, 2006, and his last full day of life.

“The last conscious moment of Martin Lee Anderson’s life was with his mouth being covered by a hand and ammonia capsules shoved into his face as he struggled to breathe,” Bondi said.

Former boot camp drill instructors Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms Jr., Henry McFadden Jr. and Joseph Walsh II, along with former camp nurse Kristin Schmidt, face charges of aggravated manslaughter of a child and 30 years in prison each if convicted as charged.

They’re accused of culpable negligence in 14-year-old Anderson’s death. Anderson died Jan. 6, 2006, after collapsing during his initiation into the camp.

The trial, held inside the Bay County Juvenile Justice Courthouse on 11th Street, began Wednesday and is expected to end Oct. 12 or 13. Testimony resumes at 8:30 a.m.

In her opening statement, Bondi pointed out three episodes where the drill instructors used ammonia capsules, or “smelling salts,” on Anderson during the 23-minute encounter. She said one lasted 55 seconds, another 54 seconds and the third “well over five minutes with three separate applications.”

She said Anderson didn’t die from natural causes, as Panama City Medical Examiner Charles Siebert Jr. opined in the first of two autopsies. She said Anderson died from oxygen deprivation, the result of having his mouth covered and forced to inhale ammonia fumes. She said sickle cell trait, Siebert’s named cause of death, is a benign blood disorder.

“This was no accident,” Bondi said. “This was a child who was killed by what these eight defendants did and what they failed to do.”

Bob Sombathy, Garrett’s attorney, followed Bondi’s presentation and started by introducing each lawyer and defendant. He then explained the defense’s view of Anderson’s cause of death.

Sombathy said more than 100 people had died in military boot camps from sickle cell trait, as have 15 to 20 athletes and five college football players.

“It is real,” he said. “There’s a history to it. And all of these people had lived normal, healthy lives.”

Sombathy said the unique finding in this case was that of Dr. Vernard Adams, who performed the second autopsy on Anderson and concluded that drill instructors had suffocated him by forcing him to breathe ammonia fumes, which caused his vocal cords to spasm and close his airway.

“There has not ever been a case where ammonia capsules caused any serious injury to anybody,” Sombathy said. “Dr. Adams’ opinion is the first of its kind in the history of the world.”

Sombathy, and most of the other defense attorneys, told jurors there had to be some element of foresight that the guards’ actions would cause Anderson’s death. He said it was uncontested that none of the boot camp employees knew that Anderson had sickle cell trait.

Sombathy said jurors would hear from a hematologist who had witnessed people collapse from sickle cell trait during physical exertion.

“He described this as a classic exertional sickle cell collapse,” he said.

Witnesses

The day’s first witnesses mainly were medical personnel — a paramedic who first treated Anderson and doctors and nurses from Bay Medical Center’s emergency department. One of the issues closely discussed was at what time Anderson’s blood gases were tested.

Both sides want to establish this point because Anderson’s carbon dioxide level was below normal. Emergency department Dr. Jeff Appel said Wednesday he would have expected to see the carbon dioxide level in Anderson’s blood to be 20 or 30 points above normal if he had been suffocated into a coma; instead, it was 20 points below.

When someone stops breathing, his oxygen levels drop because he can’t get air in, but carbon dioxide levels rise because the body can’t get rid of it through exhalation.

Siebert explained the low carbon dioxide level in his autopsy report by saying that Anderson never stopped breathing; his blood, because of the sickled red blood cells, couldn’t absorb and transport oxygen properly but still was shedding carbon dioxide.

Adams explained the low level by saying that Anderson was able to “blow off” the excess carbon dioxide after the guards stopped suffocating him. If Anderson was “ventilated” — whereby a person or machine forced oxygen into his system and assisted him in getting rid of the carbon dioxide — at some point before his blood gases were tested, then his carbon dioxide level would have dropped faster.

Respiratory therapist Dr. Dennis Arnold said Anderson’s breathing was manually assisted for less than a minute before his blood was drawn for testing. Anderson then was hooked up to a respirator after the blood was tested.

Appel said he had no experience with exertional sickle cell trait collapse prior to Anderson, but insisted his treatment of Anderson would not have changed if he had known that Anderson had sickle cell trait.

Appel also said that the guards’ use of ammonia capsules, and whether they obstructed his mouth for any length of time, played no role in his treatment. Appel said he has used smelling salts hundreds of times in his career to revive patients and to test for malingering. He said he has never heard of them causing injury or death.

Videotape

The man who videotaped the encounter between the guards and Anderson was the first to take the stand. Antonio Jones, now a Panama City Beach police officer, said he was working the control booth the morning of Anderson’s collapse and recorded the incident while also logging the guards’ use of force.

He said he had the authority to call 9-1-1 or intercede on Anderson’s behalf if he saw the guards abusing him or signs of distress. Jones said he saw neither.

“You’re not accusing these men you just identified of any wrongdoing, are you?” defense attorney Jim White asked him, after Jones identified each defendant for the jury.

“No sir,” Jones said.

Missouri boot camp part of national investigation

Article
By STEVE ROCK
The Kansas City Star

A Missouri boot camp where a student died nearly three years ago is part of a federal investigation into the nation’s facilities for troubled teens.

Three former employees of Thayer Learning Center in Kidder, Mo., told The Kansas City Star this week that government investigators told them Thayer was a key focus of that investigation.

Greg Spies, a Kansas City attorney for Thayer, said Thayer officials have “fully cooperated” with investigators for the U.S. Government Accountability Office who recently visited the facility and interviewed students.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, is conducting the nationwide investigation into residential treatment programs for children at the behest of U.S. Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat. A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C., before the House Education and Labor Committee, of which Miller is the chairman.

Ultimately, Miller’s office hopes to convince Congress that boot camp-type facilities should be more stringently regulated.

Thayer — which is exempt from state oversight under Missouri law — houses more than 100 troubled teens about 50 miles north of Kansas City. It has been the subject of numerous child abuse allegations, most of which came to light after the November 2004 death of student Roberto Reyes.

Roberto, 15, died after spending less than two weeks at Thayer. His death was attributed to a spider bite. Thayer owners John and Willa Bundy denied any wrongdoing in connection with the fatality. They also have denied any abuse allegations.

In February 2005, Roberto’s parents alleged in a wrongful-death lawsuit that Roberto was subjected to physical exertion and abuse that caused or contributed to his death. They alleged that he would have lived had he received competent medical care in a timely manner and that he was dragged, hit, placed into solitary confinement and “forced to lay in his own excrement for extended periods of time.”

In court filings, Thayer officials denied those and other allegations. The two sides settled the case in March 2006 for slightly more than $1 million.

A 2005 investigation by The Star showed that, between April 2003 and October 2005, at least seven persons had reported more than a dozen allegations of child abuse at Thayer to the Caldwell County sheriff’s office. A state investigative report said “it appears that those responsible for the safety and well-being of Roberto Reyes failed to recognize his medical distress and to provide access to appropriate medical evaluation and/or treatment.”

Thayer officials are challenging in court the Department of Social Services’ findings of “probable cause” that employees at Thayer medically neglected Roberto.

No Thayer official was charged in connection with Roberto’s death or any other child-abuse allegations.

Tom Kiley, communications director in Miller’s office, said the GAO began a review of boot camp-type facilities in 2006 and expanded it in 2007.

Kiley wouldn’t confirm the specific subjects of the investigation, but former Thayer employee Sarah Mackey of Polo, Mo., told The Star she was interviewed in September and that one of the GAO investigators told her Thayer was a key subject.

Former employee Kris Trimble of Gallatin, Mo., said the same thing, adding, “They said they wanted to open the public’s eye about things that are going on.”

Miller first asked the GAO in December 2005 to conduct a nationwide investigation, noting in a letter to the agency, “This study is urgently needed because of allegations of child abuse, human rights violations, fraud and other violations” at facilities throughout the country.

He estimated that thousands of American children were enrolled in hundreds of programs nationwide.

Miller introduced legislation in April 2005 that would provide more monitoring of boot camps and similar programs. The End Institutionalized Abuse Against Children Act would, among other things, provide $50 million to states to support the licensing of child residential treatment programs.

Miller is concerned that many states, like Missouri, have laws that allow facilities such as Thayer to operate with virtually no state or federal oversight.

The third former employee interviewed by The Star, Ricky Ableidinger of Jamesport, Mo., not only spoke to the GAO but also in August filed a report with the Caldwell County sheriff’s office. In it, he alleged that a student was “grabbed by the neck and squeezed until (his) face started turning purple.”

The same report referred to a separate incident in which the same student allegedly was repeatedly pushed to the ground by a drill sergeant. That student at some point suffered a broken arm, the report says. The report doesn’t make clear when or how that happened. Spies, the Thayer attorney, said all allegations in Ableidinger’s report were investigated by “a couple of different agencies” and were determined to be unfounded. He didn’t know which agencies had conducted the investigation.

Ableidinger, who worked as a security guard for Thayer for a little more than a month during the summer, alleged that a drill sergeant was forcing the student to run and repeatedly slammed his own hands into the student’s back hard enough to make the student fall. The student was crying and begging the drill sergeant to stop, according to the report.

Ableidinger alleged that the student fell to the ground “at least eight to 10 times” and that, at one point, he “landed on his right wrist and elbow.”

According to the police report, Ableidinger called in sick the next two days and then was off work for two more days. The next time he saw the student, the report said, the child’s right arm was in a cast and Ableidinger was told it was broken in two places. The drill sergeant then told Ableidinger that the student’s injury did not occur at Thayer but happened before he got there.

According to the police report, a Thayer official offered Ableidinger a promotion if he didn’t go to the police about the incident. Spies said that never happened.

“Not even close,” he said.

Ableidinger quit and filed the report on Aug. 4.

When contacted recently by The Star, Ableidinger said he stood by his allegations.

He said that the student’s arm wasn’t broken when the student first got to Thayer and that he saw other things that bothered him: Some students were denied bathroom breaks until they urinated and defecated on themselves, for example, and other students were forced to exercise until they vomited and were then forced to exercise in their own vomit.

“I was so disturbed by some of the things I saw there,” Ableidinger said.

Thayer officials previously have called similar allegations “ludicrous and false.”

Caldwell County Sheriff Kirby Brelsford couldn’t be reached to discuss his office’s role in the investigation. Ana Compain-Romero, communications director for the Department of Social Services, cited state privacy laws in declining to comment about the state’s role in the case.

Caldwell County Prosecutor Brady Kopek said he’s not sure whether investigators have had a chance to speak with the child named in Ableidinger’s report and that nobody has been charged in connection with the incident.

“It’s still under investigation,” Kopek said.