Pyote Bounces
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:31 pm
The story of the sex abuse scandal at Pyote, which we broke on Friday afternoon (followed closely by the Dallas Morning News on Sunday), hit the wire services and made the rounds Monday and Tuesday, including TV news reports in Midland. Hernandez, one of the alleged perps, has been suspended with pay from his current job as prinicpal at Milburn Academy, a charter school in Midland. Randy Reynolds, the district attorney in Ward County who sat on the case for almost a year and a half, announced that he was now ready to prosecute, though no arrests have yet been made. In at least one report I read, Reynolds seemed to imply he was waiting for the Texas Rangers to finish up so that he could act. In fact, as we reported in our original story, the Rangers have been done with their investigation for roughly a year and a half. Ranger Captain Barry Caver had this to say about a possible cover up by the Texas Youth Commission in yesterday’s Odessa American: “It’s obviously a good-old-boy system, and they take care of each other.”
Senator Juan Hinojosa, meanwhile, has introduced SB 103, which would allow the Texas Rangers to take an active role in investigating abuses at TYC state schools. It looks like TYC executive director Dwight Harris will be in the hot seat on Tuesday, when the bill is scheduled for a hearing before the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. If problems at TYC are as widespread as they seem to be, the Rangers might find their resources pretty stretched. Other advocates have called for a truly independent inspector general’s office for TYC, with a director who is not hired and fired by the head of the agency, and who therefore doesn’t have to worry about getting his wrist slapped for going too high up the chain of command. The adult prison system has this type of IG. I haven’t seen such a bill filed yet.
We’ll see what Harris has to say on Tuesday, now that the Pyote cat is out of the bag. Should be interesting.
February 22nd, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Thank you once again Texas Observer for actually reporting important news. Breaking stories where other media is failing. This story is a lot like the Tulia story in that it took The Texas Observer to force the state to take action. I hope that your coverage of this story will do the same. Kudos to Senator Hinojosa for stepping up too.
This is a sick and sad story. These kids certainly got more punishment than they deserved. And the bad feeling you have after reading this story is that you know that “good old boy”, “go along to get along” system is alive and well in Texas. Even in people like Lydia Barnhard.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
my son is there as we speak he was ordered realesed on the 1027 list . the second list to be put otu by the regulators of the system. who is regulating the beatings going on in the facility as we speak . what about the falsafied documents i am sent every month from them people saying my son gets his meds ( he dont) and that he gets his individualized therapy (he dont). who protects a 10 yr old from the beatings.someone please help me help him