More Details on Chad Youth Death
After last week's cover story detailed the deaths of two troubled youth and the abuse of countless others at the Chad Youth Enhancement Center, officials in Montgomery County granted the Scene access to the sheriff's office investigative file on the 2005 death of Linda Harris. She was the first teen to die at the Midstate residential facility designed to treat children ages 7 to 17 who have severe behavioral issues.
Police reports and accounts of the incident that the Scene uncovered in state regulatory files were scant at best. But the sheriff's investigative file offers a more complete, if disturbing, glimpse into the life and death of Harris. More after the jump.
Harris was a 14-year-old from Amityville, N.Y., whose developmental age was close to that of a 6-year-old. She lived with her father, a single dad—her mother, a reported drug addict and alcoholic, died when Harris was a girl. According to reports compiled by several New York state psychiatrists, in 2004 Harris struck up an Internet relationship with a 20-something man who later came to her home and raped her. While Child Protective Services and police became involved in the case after a doctor found evidence of the assault, one psychiatrist wrote that "there was no follow-up and the perpetrator was not caught."
Harris began to act out and "gained weight significantly" because of several medications prescribed to treat depression. Later that year, her disruptive behavior landed her in a New York treatment center. But in 2005, she ran away and was placed back at home with her father. At this point, psychiatric assessments describe Harris as a hopeless girl who felt that "no one would miss her if she was gone." When asked what she wished for most, Harris told one therapist that she just wanted a mother.
But Harris' father said he couldn't control her. A psychiatrist recommended that Harris be sent to a "highly structured residential treatment center," and a New York judge thought Chad was the answer.
A mere four days after arriving at Chad, Harris died. According to a brief police offense report—all that the sheriff's office had made public until now—Harris had been "flashing boys" from her bedroom when staff pulled her arms behind her back and escorted her to a time-out room, where she "became limp and fell on the floor." Chad staffers then sat down next to her and held her arms behind her back as she lay on her stomach, according to the report. Once they let her go, it took a few minutes for staffers to notice that her breathing had slowed. They called 911 and started CPR.
But the investigator's files, complete with statements from numerous staffers and children who witnessed the restraint, are much more grim. To punish Harris for acting out that night, staff said that Charles Garner, the counselor who restrained her, moved the girl's mattress into a time-out room, where she was going to be forced to spend the night alone, sleeping on the floor.
When Harris refused, Garner grabbed her and moved her toward the time-out room, where he said she "dropped her body weight," causing the two to fall onto the mattress on the floor—with Garner's 260-pound body pressing down on Harris. But residents who saw the incident didn't call it a fall. One girl told police that she saw Garner "body slaming [sic] her on the mattress."
After hitting the mattress, Garner said he turned Harris' head to the side to help her breathe and continued to restrain the girl belly down on the mattress for a minute. Other staffers can't confirm what happened during the restraint, though—Garner was the only one in the room. By the time several nurses and another Chad counselor did arrive, they found Harris still on her belly. Her face was bloody and she had soiled herself—details that weren't mentioned in the initial police report or even in some staff accounts of the incident.
But many of Harris' peers reported this to police. One resident said: "Someone came in [to my room] and said that the 'fat girl had crapped herself' and when I looked, I saw her feet sticking out of the time-out room. A couple of staff were laughing because she had [soiled herself]." Another girl said that "after a while we started seeing blood [on the floor] and the staff put paper over our window so we couldn't see what was going on."
Staff reports piece together the last few moments of Harris' life. When one nurse arrived in the time-out room and asked Harris if she "was hurting," Harris didn't answer. So the nurse walked out of the room. She told investigators that it was common for residents not to answer questions right after being restrained. One resident reported hearing a nurse tell Harris that if she didn't get up, "we are going to have Mr. Garner get back on you."
Staff reports conflict at this point. One nurse said that when she and other nurses checked on Harris a second time and found her unresponsive, a nurse brought in an ammonia stick to put under Harris' nose. The girl still didn't respond, so the nurse said they started CPR. Another Chad counselor made no mention of the ammonia, but said staffers couldn't find Harris' pulse and then rolled her over and began compressions.
Either way, when paramedics arrived on the scene, they discovered the girl's lifeless body on the floor outside of her room. Residents in the girls' wing of the facility were understandably rattled. Some reported feeling "really scared." One girl said her roommates started "singing soft songs to calm us down."
Still, as violent and traumatic as residents reported the event to be, state medical examiner Dr. Bruce Levy ruled the death "natural." In an autopsy, Levy found that a morbidly obese and asthmatic Harris had an enlarged heart that he says is to blame for her death. Once Levy released that report, investigator Larry Hodge met with Montgomery County assistant district attorney Dan Brollier, and shortly after, the case was closed. In a sheriff's office memo, Hodge wrote that Brollier told him it wasn't necessary to present the circumstances of Harris' death to a grand jury.
Comments
How could the state medical examiner find that young girls death natural. This is such a sad story of how a young girls life ended while staff stood back and did nothing to help her. This never should have happened and these people that let her die should be held accountable to what they did to her. These are children with problems not hard core criminals.
Posted 11/13/2007 at 10:43:37 AMThis just disgusts me!The worst part is these children are abused in Public school long before they make it to these types of facilities and no one cares. We teach these children nothing by hurting them,violence begets violence. Where is the outrage from our Government & fellow human beings? The lack of compassion for these children makes me weep.
Posted 11/13/2007 at 11:43:14 AMI can't believe this was never even presented to a grand jury. When a 14-year-old girl dies while being restrained by a 260-pound man, it hardly seems "natural."
Posted 11/13/2007 at 02:27:20 PMAs a taxpayer and United States Citizen, how can things like this continue to happen in facilities across the nation?
Posted 11/13/2007 at 02:56:42 PMWhen are our lawmakers and judicial system going to wake up?
Prone restraints of any kind on children can cause asphyxia and obviously there is lack of training of staffers on this issue across the country.
These people need to be held liable, if not crimially, then civilly
Please take action with your state's lawmakers and sign the petition.
Posted 11/13/2007 at 03:22:00 PMhttp://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/831847137
Do you know the whole story
Posted 12/09/2007 at 03:21:23 AMWhere was Child Find of IDEA? This is a good example of how school districts address special education children, by dumping them in a place like Chad instead of providing them with special education services. Who will hold the school district special education department responsible for their refusal to provide an IEP that addressed this child's needs.
Posted 12/31/2007 at 06:26:03 AMI was at CHAD for a year, The only reason i started behaving has because i didnt want to go back to a place like this. It was a horrible experience. Many incidents which are not reported on the internet. There were a few good staff but not many.
Posted 04/19/2008 at 01:09:22 AM