Dallas Morning News Joins Us on Pyote Story
February 19th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
For those following the story we broke Friday afternoon on the sex abuse scandal and cover up at West Texas State School in Pyote (we posted a special web-only advance copy of the story “Hidden in Plain Sight” on our homepage; the print version will be arriving in mail boxes later this week), note that the Dallas Morning News weighed in on the same story yesterday with 1700 words by reporter Doug J. Swanson. We’d been hearing that Swanson was on this story and filing record requests for quite some time. Apparently through his own compilation of figures he obtained through open records, he came up with this astounding fact: “Since 2000, more than 90 employees at TYC facilities – some of them contractors – have been disciplined or fired for sexual misconduct with inmates.”
Clearly, this is a serious problem at TYC and we’re glad to see the News on the story. The Senate finance committee seems unusually attuned to the agency’s troubles right now; we’ll see if the added attention gets things moving. Watch this space for updates on the fallout from this new scandal.
February 19th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Your story about wrong doing at TYC is on target. TYC administration is a group of self serving evil individuals. If a TYC employee complains about wrong doing they are heavily retaliated against. One of their prime tactics is to find an employee guilty of false abuse related to a TYC youth. A number of past employees have collected awards from the courts due to the bogus abuse charges and wrongful termination. Most don’t fight the trumped up abuse charges, they leave and find another job.
Sexual favors equal rapid advancement at TYC for men and women. Complaints regarding sexual harassment or sexual wrong doing will get you fired. All of the management people starting with assistant superintendents all the way up to the executive director cover for each other. If you try to bring their disgusting misconduct to light you will be dealt with. For those of us who have spent years fighting the system at TYC to help the youth in our care it has been a hard fight. I can only speak for myself when I say I had given up on there ever being a change. Now I have a slight hope the evil people who have been put in charge of TYC will be fired and convicted of their horrible crimes against children and the people who tried to protect the children. I can only hope the people of authority don’t let this serious situation pass uncorrected.
The situation at the West Texas unit is not an exception, it is the norm. I pray the news media does not let this story die before the guilty are brought to justice. Please allow all of us, who try to help the youth in TYC become better people, continue to do our job without fear of the administration we work for. Please help us to help all of the children we possibly can.
Please keep my name any identifying information confidential. If TYC finds out who wrote the above comments my job and or my life would be in serious jeopardy. I know this to be true from personal experience.
April 14th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Hello,
My name is Dionne McNutt and my husband is a pediatrician in Lubbock, Texas. My 10-year-old son (now 11 and STILL not tried or even charged) was falsely accused of a crime and held for 10 days at the Lubbock County Juvenile Justice Center.
While this is not a TYC facility, it is a state-administered facility nonetheless. While being detained there, my son faced some of the same kinds of abuses suffered by those held at TYC. He was locked in his room for 3 hours at a time for “not shutting a door correctly.” On yet another occasion, they turned off his electricity and water, stripped his bed and took all the letters and pictures off of his wall.
My son, who is very small, was hazed repeatedly by the detention officers and was threatened and told not to tell anyone. One guard told my son to go to his room, lean against his wall and get ready for a cavity search; He didn’t even know what that was. He was also placed in the middle of their pod by a guard who pulled out electric clippers and told my son they were shaving his head. He wasn’t even allowed his weekly phone call home.
When he didn’t eat all of his food they threatened to make him wear a dress. These are just a few of the things that we know about. After a little research I found out that in the past 2 years there have been 2 suicides and at least one allegation of rape.
When I complained to the Director, Les Brown, about how my son was treated he had me banned from the building as an attempt to muzzle me. I reported the Lubbock County Juvenile Justice Center to the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission but it took them almost a year to investigate and file a report. The report agreed that my son’s rights were violated, but not all of these violations rose to a “significant level.” TJPC also agreed that some of these violations and abuse did rise to a level requiring action however only one individual was disciplined (one detention officer received a three-day suspension), with no other consequences to anyone else.
Ironically, my husband does many of the physicals for kids entering the S.T.A.R. program here so he has heard from other parents about how their kids were mistreated at the juvenile justice center and whose parents, like myself, were “banned” from the premises when they complained. Apparently, the leaders of the Juvenile Justice Centers - charged with helping and supervising our kids - would rather ignore problems at their sites or, sadder still, disregard the victimization our kids might be going through.
I hope the investigation into TYC will lead to other investigations of the institutions that our children are locked in. The Texas House and Senate members serving on the Juvenile Justice & Family Issues and Criminal Justice committees, respectively, can not claim ignorance on these issues because we have sent each of them a packet detailing the abuses that occurred in Lubbock. I sent all of these via certified mail and received all tags back. The only interest I ever received was from my Texas State House member, Carl Isett. Representative Isett does not even serve on these committees but offered his assistance nevertheless.
If you have a way to bring these abuses to a larger audience, my family and I would greatly appreciate it, as would the children of Lubbock.
Thank you,
Dr. Steve and Dionne McNutt
6328 10th Street
Lubbock,TX. 79416
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Dionne,
Sorry that I do not know you but I do know Steve. We worked together for a while a few years ago and I have nothing but respect for him. I am so sorry to hear about the troubles with you son. I applaud you and Steve for speaking out the mistreatment received by Texas kids in the custody of the state.