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Guard assaulted as juveniles flee center, police say
August 1, 2008
St. Joseph News Press
KIDDER, Mo. — Two juveniles assaulted a guard at about 11 p.m. Tuesday and fled the Thayer Learning Center in Kidder, authorities said.
The Cameron (Mo.) Police Department captured the juveniles at the McDonald’s restaurant at about 1 a.m. Wednesday, said Kirby Brelsford, Caldwell County sheriff.
Whenever juveniles run away from home or someplace else the department routinely notifies Cameron businesses since they tend to head to the bright lights of Cameron, Mr. Brelsford said.
The two juveniles fled into Daviess County and allegedly stole a pickup that they drove to Cameron, he said.
Area law enforcement agencies were alerted and assisted in searching for the two.
After questioning them at the Cameron Police Department, they were taken to the Clay County Juvenile Detention Center. Both will be brought to Kingston, Mo., for a juvenile hearing today.
UPDATE: Escapees apprehended
By D'Anna Balliett
July 30, 2008
Cameron Citizen-Observer
Two youth assaulted a security guard in their escape from the Thayer Learning Center Tuesday night, July 29. Thayer Learning Center is located in Kidder Missouri.
Caldwell County authorities alerted surrounding law enforcement agencies of the escape at approximately 11:45 p.m. that night. Reports state that a security guard was tied up after being assaulted. Jameson and Fox, the two escapees, were last seen leaving the area on foot.
Reports saying the youth had left on foot had authorities searching in all directions but mainly toward Daviess County. Later information came to police that the boys intended to stop at the McDonald's in Cameron, Mo.
Shortly before 1 a.m., Cameron police were notified that the subjects were in a truck at the McDonald's Drive through. Cameron police, Missouri State Highway Patrol, Caldwell Sheriff arrived on scene.
The individuals, Jameson a 15 year old white male and Fox, a 15 to 17 year old white male, were taken into custody and transferred to the Cameron Police department where they were held until being transferred to a juvenile detention center.
According to Cameron Juvenile Officer, Kieth Mathews, the investigation into the incident is ongoing and involves three counties. Information is still being gathered before charges can be filed against the individuals.
Ex-employees sue boot camp accused of abuse
By STEVE ROCK
The Kansas City Star
June 3, 2008
Five former employees of a northwest Missouri boot camp where a child died in 2004 have sued for alleged malicious prosecution.
The workers had been sued by Thayer Learning Center in a case that eventually was dropped. In that lawsuit, Thayer alleged that the ex-employees made false statements and false allegations to law-enforcement officials and others about activities at the camp.
In the lawsuit filed Monday, the former employees allege that Thayer sued them to keep them and others quiet, describing the lawsuit against them as an attempt “to keep the truth about their facility secret.”
The workers’ lawsuit also accuses Thayer of suing them “to hide from the appropriate authorities and parents the fact that … the usual methods used by (Thayer) did indeed and actually constitute child abuse.”
The case filed in Caldwell County Circuit Court names Thayer Learning Center and the facility’s owner, Willa Bundy, as defendants.
Bundy and an attorney for the center did not return phone calls Monday and Tuesday.
Allegations of child abuse at Thayer — about 50 miles northeast of Kansas City in Kidder — came to light after Roberto Reyes, 15, died in November 2004, less than two weeks after enrolling.
No charges were filed in connection with Roberto’s death, but the FBI recently conducted a preliminary investigation and sent its findings to the U.S. Department of Justice. Officials there are reviewing the case.
Thayer officials have said that allegations of abuse were “ludicrous and false.”
In its 2003 lawsuit, Thayer alleged that the workers made false statements to third parties about the center “physically abusing and harming its students” and accused them of violating written contracts by contacting parents, government agencies and law-enforcement officials to discuss specific students and school operations.
Those contacts, Thayer alleged, forced the school to “have to continually … deny these false allegations” and caused the loss of potential students. Thayer dropped its lawsuit last month.
In their lawsuit, the ex-employees said contractual agreements could not be used to prevent individuals from reporting abuse. They accuse Thayer of “covering up the fact that they had an unqualified and unsupervised staff engaging in child abuse.”
Phil Elberg, a New Jersey attorney representing the plaintiffs, alleged by phone that Thayer’s 2003 lawsuit “was clearly intended to scare people into shutting up.”
The plaintiffs did not specify a dollar amount but alleged that the center’s “outrageous” behavior “showed an evil motive” and therefore entitles them to exemplary damages in addition to actual damages, attorneys’ fees and “such other relief as the court deems just and proper.”
Elberg said the plaintiffs — Nanette Burge and Candessa Williams of Gallatin, Mo.; Linda Glenn and Janet Traylor of Hamilton, Mo., and Regina Burge of Jamesport, Mo. — would not comment.
A 2005 investigation by The Kansas City Star showed that, between April 2003 and October 2005, at least seven people reported more than a dozen allegations of child abuse at Thayer to the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office. A state investigative report obtained by The Star said “it appears that those responsible for the safety … of Roberto Reyes failed to recognize his medical distress and to provide access to appropriate medical evaluation and/or treatment.”
In a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in 2005, Roberto’s parents alleged that the teenager would have lived had he received competent medical care in a timely manner and that he was dragged, hit, placed in solitary confinement and “forced to lay in his own excrement for extended periods” of time.
In court filings, Thayer denied those and other allegations. The two sides settled in March 2006 for slightly more than $1 million.
To reach Steve Rock, call 816-234-4338 or send e-mail to srock@kcstar.com.
Click Here to Read the Lawsuit
When is Tough Love Torture?
By Maia Szalavitz
May 4, 2008
"Last time this country witnessed somebody with a bag over his head and a noose around his neck, the world was horrified and the nation was embarrassed," thundered Rep. George Miller, on hearing testimony this April regarding abusive treatment of troubled teens in unregulated residential programs. "To be told [by these witnesses] that this is considered a valid therapy by someone in the care of someone else's child…It's hard to believe."
Miller—who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee—had called for the congressional hearings to introduce legislation to regulate the programs, which use such "tough love" methods in an attempt to discipline difficult adolescents. He'd also requested a Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation. At the first round of hearings last October, the GAO had released its initial report, finding "thousands" of allegations of child abuse, medical neglect and "reckless and negligent operating practices," in "boot camps, "wilderness programs" and "academies," which currently hold tens of thousands of American youth. Two additional GAO reports were introduced at the April hearings—with investigators describing the treatment of some of the youth as "torture." One youth was beaten for weeks and denied medical attention after a suicide attempt left him with an exposed bone from a broken arm; others were taunted, then ignored as they lay dying; some were even hooded and had nooses placed around their necks.
Click Here to Read the Entire Article
Teen boot camp hearing targets Missouri agency
By STEVE ROCK and DAVID GOLDSTEIN
The Kansas City Star
April 24, 2008
WASHINGTON | In a hearing designed to expose deceptive marketing practices in the residential treatment industry for troubled teens, a northwest Missouri referral agency was singled out Thursday on Capitol Hill.
The hearing, held before a House committee, included testimony of examples of cruelty and neglect used by officials at boot camps and residential treatment centers.
It highlighted what Greg Kutz called “deceptive and other questionable” marketing tactics by some referral agencies. Kutz, who is leading an investigation into youth residential programs for the federal Government Accountability Office, specifically named Parent Help of Gallatin, Mo., as one of them.
For example: Despite online descriptions that say Parent Help workers will “look at your special situation and help you select the best school for your teen,” all three GAO investigators who called Parent Help with fictitious stories about their children were referred to Thayer Learning Center.
Parent Help is owned by John Bundy, while Thayer is owned by his wife, Willa Bundy.
“They didn’t disclose that to us as parents,” Kutz testified.
Thayer Learning Center, where Roberto Reyes of California died at age 15 in November 2004 after his parents were referred to the school through Parent Help, is located about 50 miles northeast of Kansas City in Kidder. Parent Help is less than 15 miles from there.
Officials at Thayer and attorneys for Thayer didn’t return calls from The Star on Thursday.
The GAO found that among the more questionable practices were false promises of tax incentives and insurance reimbursements. Monthly charges ranged from $2,800 to $13,000, Kutz said.
In a recorded conversation excerpted during the hearing, an official with Parent Help told a GAO investigator that a “whole-grain diet” coupled with exercise and sleep would cause a child’s bipolar disorder and depression to “just go away after a while.”
An agent at a different agency told an investigator posing as the father of a troubled teenage girl that her mother would “freak out” if she knew what kind of place their daughter was going to.
“I want you to tell her it’s a college prep boarding school,” the agent said, according to the GAO. “If she thinks that you want to send her daughter to a place where there are drug addicts and people that are all screwed up, she will look at you and say, ‘No way.’ ”
The hearing was designed to call attention to lax oversight of such facilities. There is no federal oversight, and state oversight is loose and inconsistent, according to the GAO.
U.S. Rep. George Miller of California, chairman of the House education committee, introduced legislation this week that would set up minimum standards for all programs.
“This legislation would take the first step toward finally ending the horrific abuses that have gone on far too long in private residential treatment programs for teens,” Miller said.
In a January 2005 report, The Star disclosed the relationship between Thayer and Parent Help and identified several parents who felt deceived. They had called a Parent Help hot line and were all strongly encouraged to send their kids to Thayer — and only Thayer.
None of them was told of the connection between Parent Help and Thayer.
To reach Steve Rock, send e-mail to srock@kcstar.com
This page was updated Tuesday, August 5, 2008