Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Anonymous on May 12, 2004, 04:14:00 AM
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http://www.safeandsoundtransportation.c ... /index.htm (http://www.safeandsoundtransportation.com/pages/905768/index.htm)
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I have provided you a link to a companys that make it their business to investigate and to personally check out schools and programs before referring to them. Please contact them for any assistance you may need in choosing the RIGHT PLACE for your child. Contact Sue or Marie at http://www.helpyourteens.com (http://www.helpyourteens.com)
I wonder if Lorraine can tell me exactly how Sue and Marie go about determining that a school or program is safe and effective or to which schools and programs they refer people.Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
--Bruce Lee
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Why do parents need escort services anyway? Seems to me the kind, loving and most secure way to handle transporting a teen into one of these lock-down programs is for the child's parent or another family member to "escort" them. I mean, there are some serious trust issues to consider here, are there not?
http://www.helpyourteens.com/safe_trans ... vices.html (http://www.helpyourteens.com/safe_transport_services.html)
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On 2004-05-12 14:28:00, Antigen wrote:
"
I have provided you a link to a companys that make it their business to investigate and to personally check out schools and programs before referring to them. Please contact them for any assistance you may need in choosing the RIGHT PLACE for your child. Contact Sue or Marie at http://www.helpyourteens.com (http://www.helpyourteens.com)
I wonder if Lorraine can tell me exactly how Sue and Marie go about determining that a school or program is safe and effective or to which schools and programs they refer people.Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
--Bruce Lee
"
:nworthy:
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Sounds like this firm does out-of-country transports.
http://helpingteens.com/services.htm (http://helpingteens.com/services.htm)
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http://helpingteens.com/whattheysaid.htm (http://helpingteens.com/whattheysaid.htm)
mmhmm...
"Thank you so much for escorting (my son) to Tranquility Bay. It was reassuring to hear about you from other parents, and then place our most important treasure in your hands!
- Diann G., Wichita Falls, TX"
Wow, such wonderful people they are, kidnapping a kid and taking him off to a torture camp!
Ya know, I got a female friend thats only like 5'1", looks young for her age (she is 20) and happens to be a submissive masochist.. :idea: could someone somehow work out how she could go undercover for a few weeks? She could handle the abuse much better than a kid could - and is willing.
Just a thought.
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Just curious if any of the anti-WWASPS parents who post on Fornits used this firm, Strawn, to transport their child into a WWASPS program?
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On 2004-05-14 09:50:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Just curious if any of the anti-WWASPS parents who post on Fornits used this firm, Strawn, to transport their child into a WWASPS program?"
Karen Burnett, do you know anything about this company, Strawn?
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Anon asks:
"Karen Burnett, do you know anything about this company, Strawn?"
If its Strawn Escort services, out of Atlanta, then I do know of them; and have some personal experaince with them.
Elsewhwere another anon says:
"To Karen Burnett (Karen Z.)
Don't even think about posting again to tell us how wonderful your son's escort experience was on his way down to Dundee Ranch because that is just too nauseating for me and I am almost out of Pepto Bismo."
So, you see, I haven't had anything really bad to say about them; and that has been translated into saying it was "wonderful"; which I didn't say; Just that is wasn't bad; and that my son was propably more relaxed in their company than he would've been in mine; and that my Only complaint is, I feel "they" ought to have been more honest with me with regard to what kind of place wwasp operated; the *assumption* being they knew.
Care to explain why you want to know?
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Karen, are you saying Strawn escorted your son to Dundee Ranch?
:???:
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On 2004-05-14 14:07:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Karen, are you saying Strawn escorted your son to Dundee Ranch?
:???: "
Well??????
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If I recall correctly, isn't this the way you described your son's escort to ALA, Karen? I could be wrong, am I?
Laws are like spider webs. If some poor weak creature comes up against them - it is caught. But the bigger one can break through and get away.
-- Solon; Greek philosopher - c.630-c.555 BC
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Yeah, Ginger, you just have the two situations confussed, is my guess.
I had him escorted to Dundee (I'm not exactly proud of that; but it Wasn't the horrow story so often told; and it wasn't with out warning that I would, if I felt I needed to.)But when I pulled him, I met his plane in Miami and flew out to ALA with him.
KJB
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Karen, who escorted your son?
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Karen, who escorted your son (not to ALA) but to Dundee Ranch in Costa Rica?
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Ya know, who gives a damn????? Karen did what she thought was right at the time, it worked out OK for her....
so drop it, Anon. It don't mean shit whoever she used, and you know it.
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On 2004-05-15 19:23:00, spots wrote:
"Ya know, who gives a damn????? Karen did what she thought was right at the time, it worked out OK for her....
so drop it, Anon. It don't mean shit whoever she used, and you know it."
And the teen, how did it work out for him, Spots?
I mean, that is the point not whether "it" worked out okay for these damn stupid parents.
:silly:
:silly:
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look into strawns background deep. you will be amazed!!! Hint look for sexual-abuse claims on a minor!!!! And parents trust him!!!! he sexualy abused a minor!!!!
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On 2004-05-15 21:52:00, Anonymous wrote:
"look into strawns background deep. you will be amazed!!! Hint look for sexual-abuse claims on a minor!!!! And parents trust him!!!! he sexualy abused a minor!!!!"
Anon, is this person the same person you are referring to?
Source: Atlanta Constitution
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Arc ... _topdoc=11 (http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=list&p_topdoc=11)
LAW AND ORDER
Police sergeant faces charges of battering girl, 14
Author: Date: February 1, 1997 Publication: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution Page Number: D7 Word Count: 885
From staff reports
An Atlanta police sergeant who faces an internal affairs investigation into allegations he molested his stepdaughter has been charged with battering the 14-year-old girl. Rick Strawn kicked the teen while struggling with her over a camera, according to a Gwinnett County police report. Strawn was arrested in Lawrenceville Thursday night. He also was arrested in June 1996 after the girl told a counselor her stepfather molested her while she was asleep when she was 12
LAW AND ORDER
Police sergeant faces charges of battering girl, 14
Author: Date: February 1, 1997 Publication: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution Page Number: D7 Word Count: 867
From staff reports
An Atlanta police sergeant who faces an internal affairs investigation into allegations he molested his stepdaughter has been charged with battering the 14-year-old girl. Rick Strawn kicked the teen while struggling with her over a camera, according to a Gwinnett County police report. Strawn was arrested in Lawrenceville on Thursday night. He also was arrested in June 1996 after the girl told a counselor her stepfather molested her while she was asleep when she was 12
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Spots, you asked who gives a damn?
Well FYI there are alot of us who give a damn. When you have "parents" like Karen "helping" parents" it is very very significant to clearly understand how little these "parents helping other parents" know. They claim to be experts in an industry that deals with "teens at risk." What a joke :lol:
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On 2004-05-16 07:31:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Spots, you asked who gives a damn?
Well FYI there are alot of us who give a damn. When you have "parents" like Karen "helping" parents" it is very very significant to clearly understand how little these "parents helping other parents" know. They claim to be experts in an industry that deals with "teens at risk." What a joke ::bigsmilebounce:: ::birthday:: ::hatter:: ::kiss::
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How many times do we have to say it .... WWASPS ain't the only bad kid on the block. In fact, it is one of hundreds among the teen help industry. Have you seen the allegations against CEDU? The so-called faith-based programs? What about the kick-ass boot camps and quasi-military-schools? Provo Canyon? Wilderness therapy programs?
This long crusade to "bring WWASPS down" has done nothing but line the pockets of some rather dubious people by giving parents a false sense of security that if they stay away from WWASPS, they are somehow choosing a safer, more "healthy" program. That is pure poppycock. This is a self-regulated, self-policed industry. None of these parents-helping-other-parents are experts in anything but enabling teens to spend the better part of their adolescence confined to some money-making institution. IMO, these people are lower and dirtier than pond scum.
Nobody gives a damn? What about every single teen who lost their innocence in one of these hell-hole institutions? Looks like you forget about them, Spots, in your rush to defend "parents helping other parents".
:flame:
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Karen here:
First let me say, I never have at any time claimed to be an expert on anything and anyone who knows me at all, knows this.
I have always been Way up front, that I'm just a house wife and Mom with no education beyond High school.
However, I have had a lot of experaince getting services from state and federal sorces for mentally ill teens; and I can give sound advice along those lines; and often much more honest and straight forward than the actual social workers who are supposed to be doing this can/will give. And so in this regard, I Can help parents who are facing these kinds of problems; even with out a degree.
As for program placement; which I suppose the goofy faced anon is aluding to: I don't and never have done this. I can talk about my Personal experaince, and this is all I do, or have ever done.
I have explained this SO many times.
Goofy face just won't leave it alone. She is like that.I suppose she can't help it.
As for this news abou Strawn; I am rather upset to see this; wondering why this is the first I've seen it; pretty much feeling hurt and depressed over it. I liked him; even if he was less than completly upfront with me.
Still, people should keep in mind; some kids do lie; some mental disoders espically predispose the patients to tell lies of exactly this kind; so I think it best to not judge To harshly with out more actual knowledge of the people and events invloved.
Before you pounce on me with tooth and claw; I am Not saying it Is a lie; just that the possibilty exists; and how sad for anyone falsely accused.
If true, there is no excuse, and I wish he were in prison.
Spots, I don't want to harrass you, but I really do wish you'd get in touch off the board.
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Oh Karen, give it a rest. You are in way over your head. However well-intentioned you would have us all believe, the bottom line is you are part of the problem, not the solution. You are affiliated with a program that claims Jesus is the only way to straighten out wayward youth. That is not true, but given your lack of understanding about adolescent behavioral disorders and mental illness coupled with your born-again Christian rhetoric, I suppose you can't help yourself.
As for Strawn, you never did confirm whether you used him or some other escort service to take your son to Dundee Ranch. Regardless of the answer, it appears you have been "enlightened" and are now troubled by the news that things are NOT always what they appear to be.
Again, you are in over your head and should seriously consider helping animals instead of parents and teens. At least that way I know you'd be doing some good.
:wave:
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ya this is the same person i was talking about!! Thanks for posting the link...
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That's it, cast doubt and suspicion on the child who may be mentally ill and can't help but lie. Where have we heard this before, Karen? Program officials, whose first line of defense when faced with allegations of abuse is YOU CAN'T BELIEVE THESE DRUGGIE, LYING, MANIPULATIVE TEENS.
What a crock! These programs are full of kids from homes where a step-parent has made them the scapegoat, blamed them for "destroying" the family dynamics, etc.
Get out your Bible, Karen, and show me where Jesus would EVER allow teens to be abused in the name of therapy, or The Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
:flame:
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GEORGIA IN BRIEF
Officer heldon charge of molesting girl
Author: Staff and news services Date: June 23, 1996 Publication: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution Page Number: H4 Word Count: 612
An Atlanta police officer was relieved of his law enforcement duties Saturday following his arrest on a child molestation charge filed in Gwinnett County.
Officer Rick Strawn, 44, of Suwanee was arrested Friday night by Gwinnett County authorities and taken to the county jail, officials said. His bond was set at $50,000 cash.
Strawn was arrested on a warrant based on a complaint from his stepdaughter, who was 12 at the time of alleged abuse at Strawn's home in Suwanee last
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Get out your Bible, Karen, and show me where Jesus would EVER allow teens to be abused in the name of therapy, or The Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
--------
Or, in the name of "helping families heal", the signature mantra of "parents helping other parents" to lock up their behaviorally incorrect children with no guilt, no shame, no concern.
:roll:
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Karen writes:
As for this news abou Strawn; I am rather upset to see this; wondering why this is the first I've seen it; pretty much feeling hurt and depressed over it. I liked him; even if he was less than completly upfront with me.
******** QUESTION FOR KAREN ***********
So, how did you hear of Strawn and become acquainted with him in the first place?
And please, no more "duck and cover" tactics otherwise people are going to start thinking YOU, Karen Burnett, have been less than completely upfront with them.
:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
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Family fight leads to officer's arrest
Earlier charges involved molestation
Author: Joshua B. Good STAFF WRITER Gwinnett Date: February 1, 1997 Publication: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution Page Number: J3 Word Count: 525
Atlanta police Sgt. Rick Strawn, who faced an internal affairs review because he was accused of molesting his stepdaughter, was charged with battery and domestic violence Thursday evening in Lawrenceville after allegedly kicking the 14-year-old girl during a family fight.
The struggle between Strawn, his wife and stepdaughter was over film that showed Strawn passed out drunk, according to a Gwinnett County police report. Strawn's arrest ended two days of violent struggle within ..."
:question:
Does anyone know if this case was resolved and if so, what the outcome was? I mean, these allegations are somewhat dated, are they not?
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//And please, no more "duck and cover" tactics otherwise people are going to start thinking YOU, Karen Burnett, have been less than completely upfront with them.//
Geez people, or person, how can you imagian I have anything to say about the Strawn situation that matters? Really?
I was refered to him, is how I found him; and the web search I did pulled up nothing but his web site.
//Get out your Bible, Karen, and show me where Jesus would EVER allow teens to be abused in the name of therapy, or The Father, Son and Holy Ghost. //
Com-on now, the last thing any one on this board wants is Bible quotes. However, be it known, my Bible is always right here, at arms reach, two different translations, and I needen't "get it out".
I have on a few occasions pointed out what The Messiah had to say about this issue of children being done harm; and it was very clear it is Not OK; and that they doing the harm will regret it.
You know me, don't you; So if you want to toss verses back and forth, write me.
//That's it, cast doubt and suspicion on the child who may be mentally ill and can't help but lie. Where have we heard this before, . . . YOU CAN'T BELIEVE THESE DRUGGIE, LYING, MANIPULATIVE TEENS.
What a crock! These programs are full of kids from homes where a step-parent has made them the scapegoat, blamed them for "destroying" the family dynamics, etc.//
Well, I knew this was coming.
"Before you pounce on me with tooth and claw; I am *Not* saying it Is a lie; just that the possibility exists; and how sad for anyone falsely accused.
If true, there is no excuse, and I wish he were in prison. "
The very reason the program makes this claim and is so universally believed, is b/c it is so often true. They use this common truth to explain the complaints they know will follow placement to manipulate the parents.
I know about the monstrous injustice of a victim not being believed; but it is just as awful when good people are falsely accused; and it does happen; and there are disorders that have a very high rate of patient making just such false claims.
Now, I have no idea what is the Truth of the situation is; and neither do you; but heres where believing in a Just God is a comfort - He knows. When there is not a thing I can do here;
I can take it to His thrown and leave it there. He'll take care of it.
Actually, not that I imagine anyone cares; but this is something that cuts very close to the bone with me; and I do feel a deep anger. It has brought up memories ands issues of crimes against two little girls I know (now young adults) who were raped for Years by their step dad; and the courts sent them (the family) to family counseling - that it. He raped them both, for years, and that was all the state did. They were Little girls.
I have never gotten over it; and its one of those things I have had to let go and let God - but now its back again - at least for awhile - and no doubt, now matter how hard I try, I'll be brooding for days.
I also have a good friend, who's daughter made such claims as a result of the illness I mentioned. It did devastate her family and nearly destroy the poor dad; and it wasn't until she made the same claims against every one involved in her case, eventually, that they realized it was her illness.
Its horrible both ways.
Back to the escort.
What ever may be the case with him and all this; and I do now tend to believe it; it doesn't change what the truth was as far as his treatment of us; and that's what I have related.
If you intend to allude I am somehow "tainted" by these crimes; I have to say that is taking things a bit to far.
//Oh Karen, give it a rest. You are in way over your head. However well-intentioned you would have us all believe, the bottom line is you are part of the problem, not the solution. You are affiliated with a program that claims Jesus is the only way to straighten out wayward youth. //
Look, I responded to a question, directed to me.
Otherwise, I'm all to happy to 'give it a rest.'
I really don't give a ratz ass whether or not you think I'm helping or hurting - I mean - after all - who the hell are you? No one that matters, for sure. Who ever you are, You have no idea who I am, or what I'm doing, and weather or not it is helping or hurting.
As for my Faith - Hey, it works for me. I'm very glad of it; and I can tell you in all honesty; I have never seen anyone overcome a drug or drinking problem without God's help. And so, yes, I do think a Christian program can be helpful were other attempts fail.
I think Ginger has a valid point that it is necessary to want help; but I can't bring myself to say let the kids so at risk just go to hell in a hand basket either. As minors the parents are still responsible for them; like it or not; and if responsible; they are obligated to try and keep the kid safe and sober.
But this is a subject for another thread.
If you want to argue teens are entitled to full civil rights; just as any adult; then where and when does parental responsibility end?
Anyone want to jump threads and tackle this?
I would, but on one such occasion I had an angry and goofy face anon asking who the hell I thought I was, starting a new thread and 'ducking' their interrogation. So, if ya'll want to talk about it - go post it.
I'll check back later - I'm going to go clean my barn and play in my pond awhile; and brood over the lost innocence of little girls; and the bloody bastard who brought it about; and my one time best friend who stayed with him.
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"He'll take care of it:.
Hmmm, and if not? Should we call in the God Squad to kick Jesus around a bit?
Karen, you are a fool.
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On 2004-05-16 14:54:00, Anonymous wrote:
""He'll take care of it:.
Hmmm, and if not? Should we call in the God Squad to kick Jesus around a bit?
Karen, you are a fool. "
Does this post help? Do the statements of this anonymous person who is interested enough to read this board several times a day, but surreptitious enough to fail to even log in under a pseudonym serve a purpose? I wish this Anon would link to some name, so I could find her posts and bypass them.
I'm not religious, but even I am offended by the flippant nastiness..."God squad to kick Jesus around a bit?" Why would anyone say that? What venom flows through veins that such a statement spews out of a mad mind?
As for calling Karen a fool? Such hatred of anyone and everyone is the sort of philosophy that sends kids to behavior modification facilities. Do you think they deserve it, Anon? The world needs help changing the options for thoughtless parents. The Fornits forum is not the place for machine-gun posts of hate with no alternative or solution. Can we please move on to more constructive things?
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but even I am offended by the flippant nastiness..."
Spots, "flippant nastiness" :lol: :lol:
You Spots, are the queen of "flippant nastiness." Your posts on this board are down right ugly. Take a look in the mirror. Better yet go back and read your posts, then take a look in the mirror. Then you will see ugly as it is.
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Personally, I think the Anon who tipped us off about this teen transport agency was "right on topic". Karen B. and Spots seem to be on the same page when it comes to shoveling horse manure and cleaning barns, bashing WWASPS and promoting lawsuits "behind closed doors". How that is "helping" anybody but those who are in their inner circle is a mystery to me. Bottom line is neither of these persons bring much to the table that does not reflect their own self-serving agenda. Ordering myself and the other anons to "move on" b/c they don't like the topic would be laughable if not for the fact that the power trip these 2 ladies (being kind here) are on is downright sickening.
::puke::
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Tell us, you who are so very wise, what are YOU doing to help?
Show me, Oh great one, where I or anyone *ordered* anyone to 'move on'.
I really don't give a ratz ass whether or not you think I'm helping or hurting - I mean - after all - who the hell are you? No one that matters, for sure. Who ever you are, You have no idea who I am, or what I'm doing, and weather or not it is helping or hurting.
Bottom line is, you have nothing to say; but can't help spewing your bile.
Go crawl back in bed with your protectors
Way Way Astoundingly Stupid Person.
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Why KB, that's twice you referred to a rat's ass in the context of telling us how little you care what anyone thinks of you. Well guess what? Nobody cares that you don't care. I mean, really WHO are you but some teen helper wanna-be selling Jesus as the one-size-fits-all cure for teens suffering from entitlementitis?
:roll:
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//Why KB, that's twice you referred to a rat's ass in the context of telling us how little you care what anyone thinks of you.//
Seemed to need stressing.
//Well guess what? Nobody cares that you don't care. I mean, really WHO are you but some teen helper wanna-be selling Jesus as the one-size-fits-all cure for teens suffering from entitlementitis? //
Fair enough. But then why do you (or whoever) keep bringing my name up? Why keep asking what about this and what about that; what, when, why, how and so on and so on?
If, as you say, I don't matter; And what I think has no relivence; why keep harping on me and trying to disect every thing I have ever done or said?
Personally (not that you care)I think it is one person obbsessively trying to prove some twisted point. Often times, she is simply trying to provke myself and others into saying something helpful to her friends.
In my opinion (Not that you care) Shes a real Whacko Wanton Always Sniping Person.
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So, moving right along, why on earth would parents hire some stranger to kidnap their kid and take them to a program they (the parent) has never even visited? How nuts is that? These parents should (A) Never send a kid out of the country without at least visiting the compound they are enrolling their child in; and (B) If they are going to send their kid away, they should personally escort them, not pay somebody to do THEIR dirty work for 'em.
Honestly, it's bad enough these kids are going to programs their parents have never seen except in some video or brochure but to be lied to, tricked and/or forced into going is really horrible. I don't care how "troubled" the teen is, using transports is a cop-out, an abdication of a parent's responsibility. These are NOT summer camps for pete's sake, they are lock-down behavior modification facilities.
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How 'bout that mom who tranquilized her own kid to make her more "complaint" during her forced transport? The girl thought she was taking something for her "cramps", (if I recall correctly). Do programs and/or these escort services actually encourage parents to medicate their children to make it easier to control the child before, during and after kidnapping them?
This mom worked in the medical healthcare industry (a nurse??) and I think the girl was sent to some program in Costa Rica. Anyway, I would really like to know how common it is for kids to be "drugged" by their own parents as a tool for getting them into a program with the least amount of resistance.
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You're a child, a teenager. You wake up with some burly men in your room talking in an intimidating fashion, making you get up and follow them. You might try to run or fight or scream, but nobody comes to your aid. You are terrified and helpless.
You're bound and taken to a waiting van, and driven off. Maybe to an airport and flown far far away, or simply driven a far way. You're terrified, how could you be stolen from your own house? Did your parents have a part in it?
Eventually you end up at some facility far away from the rest of civilization. Against your will. You're still terrified, still wondering whats going on, and why. Then you enter the entry phase that all of these 'institutions' seem to have, where you're told over and over how much of a piece of shit you are, you're strip-searched and humiliated over and over again, scared more and more, and broken down until you'll admit to anything to make it stop. It won't. You endure the daily raps, 'restraint' abuse, among whatever torment you have to deal with from now on. There is no escape.
Then you realize your parents did this. For the next several months, or more... You are in hell.
Think they feel loved? Think they could trust anyone again? They can't even tell their own parents, who they probably want to crawl back to sobbing in apology that they ARE sorry, and that they are being abused, but can not. All trust, potentilaly any love they ever had, any desire to be with you is now gone. Those kids who come back are the tortured, broken shells of the people they once were, who are going to shower you with affection and 'love' so they don't get sent back.
I hope every program parent here takes some time to THINK. What are they feeling now? When was the last time you spoke to your child when they could tell you anything, and you'd listen to them? Why are you breaking the bond instead of trying to strengthen it? You're supposed to love, trust, and care for your kids, and you ship them off into hell on earth.
I think everyone who sends a kid there needs to be abducted, stripped, go through the same crap those kids do... Maybe a week of raps and restraint, and wearing the same clothes they soiled days ago might 'set them straight'.
Torturing someone into changing into the person you want is disgusting. Teach, don't torture.
While I'm on my soapbox, why is it okay to force someone into a strict religion as 'treatment' in this country? What if the kid isn't a christian? What if the kid is from another denomination if they ARE christian? How many are sent there because they're gay or because they didn't agree with their parents theology?
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Read Alex's Story:
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... 25&forum=9 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=2725&forum=9)
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Thanks Deb, any updates on Alex? Did they hold him until he turned 18 or did he get out sooner?
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It's all in that thread. I haven't heard an update recently, but I have been deleting mail from that newgroup due to a move and having to resort to webmail for weeks. In the near future, when the dust settles, I'll send an inquiry.
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Everything about these articles was recantd by the teen. Including the molestation. Get your facts straight before you gossip about others.
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On 2004-06-16 20:42:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Everything about these articles was recantd by the teen. Including the molestation. Get your facts straight before you gossip about others."
Battered wives often recant.
Just because someone recants doesn't mean it didn't happen.
OTOH, it doesn't mean it did, either.
The problem with the industry isn't how one kid was treated by one school or escort service.
The problem with the industry is a systemic lack of federal regulatory oversight in an industry that *routinely* is up to its ears in interstate commerce.
The problem needs to be fixed so there are safeguards. We need to be sure that the only kids in residential treatment are those with problems that need it, and that any residential treatment the kids are in is good, high-quality, professional residential treatment.
Safeguards. Oversight. Enforcement.
Timoclea
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Anon, are we supposed to take your word that the "teen recanted" or do you have some FACTS to support your statement?
:rofl:
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On 2004-05-15 23:23:00, Anonymous wrote:
"
On 2004-05-15 21:52:00, Anonymous wrote:
"look into strawns background deep. you will be amazed!!! Hint look for sexual-abuse claims on a minor!!!! And parents trust him!!!! he sexualy abused a minor!!!!"
Anon, is this person the same person you are referring to?
Source: Atlanta Constitution
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Arc ... _topdoc=11 (http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=list&p_topdoc=11)
LAW AND ORDER
Police sergeant faces charges of battering girl, 14
Author: Date: February 1, 1997 Publication: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution Page Number: D7 Word Count: 885
From staff reports
An Atlanta police sergeant who faces an internal affairs investigation into allegations he molested his stepdaughter has been charged with battering the 14-year-old girl. Rick Strawn kicked the teen while struggling with her over a camera, according to a Gwinnett County police report. Strawn was arrested in Lawrenceville Thursday night. He also was arrested in June 1996 after the girl told a counselor her stepfather molested her while she was asleep when she was 12
LAW AND ORDER
Police sergeant faces charges of battering girl, 14
Author: Date: February 1, 1997 Publication: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution Page Number: D7 Word Count: 867
From staff reports
An Atlanta police sergeant who faces an internal affairs investigation into allegations he molested his stepdaughter has been charged with battering the 14-year-old girl. Rick Strawn kicked the teen while struggling with her over a camera, according to a Gwinnett County police report. Strawn was arrested in Lawrenceville on Thursday night. He also was arrested in June 1996 after the girl told a counselor her stepfather molested her while she was asleep when she was 12
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So, what was the result of this reported internal affairs investigation? Just the facts, maam.
:roll:
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Perhaps the authorities encouraged him to recant to avoid the media and invasion of privacy. This often happens to victims of sexual assault. The police do not like to deal with sexual crimes and often treat the victims with insensitivity. It would not be surprising if this was done. The police do not want people to file sexual assault charges.
It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion.
--Joseph Goebbels
[ This Message was edited by: cherish wisdom on 2004-06-16 21:00 ]
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CW - I think you are confused. The person who made the allegations was not a man, but a 14 year old girl (the step-daughter of Strawn). Anon is saying this girl RECANTED her allegations but so far, has offered no proof to support their claim.
:wave:
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Unfortunantly the media doesn't go back and report when someone recants a statement, they just care about ruining others, where the juice is. Rick is a really great guy and he is honest and straightfoward with these kids and most of them respect him in the end. Have ya'll ever talked with a child that has gone through and actually COMPLETED the programs. Some of the kids have actually gone back and wanted to help other children. I hate the fact that all the hype and criticism focuses around kids that never finished the program. And about Rick, if you feel the need to wonder about the articles, just have the balls to ask him what happened instead of gossiping and relying on the media. The only show the side to make a story, not the facts. I may not provide you with facts but I'm as close to knowing the truth as anyone besides Rick. I'm his daughter and proud of it. If I was abused sexually or physically, why would I be here defending him now.
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On 2004-06-19 16:32:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Unfortunantly the media doesn't go back and report when someone recants a statement, they just care about ruining others, where the juice is. Rick is a really great guy and he is honest and straightfoward with these kids and most of them respect him in the end. Have ya'll ever talked with a child that has gone through and actually COMPLETED the programs. Some of the kids have actually gone back and wanted to help other children. I hate the fact that all the hype and criticism focuses around kids that never finished the program. And about Rick, if you feel the need to wonder about the articles, just have the balls to ask him what happened instead of gossiping and relying on the media. The only show the side to make a story, not the facts. I may not provide you with facts but I'm as close to knowing the truth as anyone besides Rick. I'm his daughter and proud of it. If I was abused sexually or physically, why would I be here defending him now. "
Huh?
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Are you then the daughter who recanted? If so,
Not that its anybody's business (its not) but if you wanted to talk a little about how and why people make false claimes, I for one, would be interested.
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An Atlanta police sergeant who faces an internal affairs investigation into allegations he molested his stepdaughter has been charged with battering the 14-year-old girl. Rick Strawn kicked the teen while struggling with her over a camera, according to a Gwinnett County police report. Strawn was arrested in Lawrenceville Thursday night. He also was arrested in June 1996 after the girl told a counselor her stepfather molested her while she was asleep when she was 12
According to this news report, Strawn was facing an *internal affairs investigation*. Are the results of internal police investigations made public?
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I don't want to talk about it, I just want ya'll to think twice about what ya'll gossip about, and no, internal affairs aren't made public. Rick is a good guy and he is good at working with these teens. I've been on a lot of the trips and I have seen how they respond to him. He is honest with them and gives them as much respect as he can. I know a guy who I have known my entire life that went to the programs and is thankful for being able to learn what he did. And I know others that ffeel the same way. YOu can judge a person or a program but until you yourself have been put in the middle living day to day and see all sides of things, you really don't know. NOw I'm not coming back on here, I said what I wanted to .
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What I want to know is this: how do parents-- particularly of girls-- justify having two strong, young men with handcuffs take their teen daughter out of bed in her pj's in the middle of the night and keep her overnight on their way to a program, when the transport agencies are neither licensed nor registered with anyone and no criminal background checks are done on these guys?
Presumably, these parents are terrified of pedophiles getting their precious offspring-- and presumably, since teen girls are often sent for being promiscuous, they don't want them to be having sex.
Why then do they think their daughters are safe with two young men whom they don't know from Adam, simply because some school on the net said they were OK? If the girl *is* promiscuous, what makes them think she won't offer the guys something to let her go? If they are told that all kids lie and manipulate to get out of this situation, wouldn't that be the first trick? And if that is what they expect, and they wouldn't believe if the daughter says she was raped or molested, how can they trust that it didn't happen?
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Good question.
I've read that some services send a male and female. I'm sure it's not always the case.
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I'll never forget David Van Blarigan telling the transporters who hauled him off to Tranquility Bay back in 1998 that they should get a "real job". I forget where I saw that quote, but it was either TIME or People Magazine. David was 16 at the time, and last I read he had been transferred to Casa By The Sea where I presume he stayed until age 18 -- any alumni out there who remember him?
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On 2004-06-20 10:30:00, Anonymous wrote:
"I don't want to talk about it, I just want ya'll to think twice about what ya'll gossip about, and no, internal affairs aren't made public. Rick is a good guy and he is good at working with these teens. I've been on a lot of the trips and I have seen how they respond to him. He is honest with them and gives them as much respect as he can. I know a guy who I have known my entire life that went to the programs and is thankful for being able to learn what he did. And I know others that ffeel the same way. YOu can judge a person or a program but until you yourself have been put in the middle living day to day and see all sides of things, you really don't know. NOw I'm not coming back on here, I said what I wanted to . "
Okay, but this news article does not sound like gossip to me. I mean, the journalist was WITH Rick Strawn, these are his (Strawn's) own words, are they not?
WANT YOUR KID TO DISAPPEAR?
For $1,800, former Atlanta police officer Rick Strawn will make that problem child someone else's problem. He even makes house calls.
By Nadya Labi
Louis Boussard has hired a professional to abduct his son.
On a late evening in early March, Rick Strawn of Strawn Support Services flew from Atlanta to Tampa, Fla. He rented a Ford Taurus with child-safety locks from Avis and set off for the coastal town of St. Petersburg with his assistant, Joshua Dalton, and me. An hour later, we were driving down a street filled with one-story homes. We slowed down outside a house with an American flag hanging from the eaves and a Jaguar and a Grand Cherokee in the semicircular driveway. It was 1:55 a.m., which meant we were early. Strawn parked in a nearby lot to kill time. He went over the plan, emphasizing, "We've got to leave by 3:15."
Flicking on the lights to look for Boussard's number, Strawn dialed his cellphone. "Um, Louis. Hi. Does your house have a circle driveway with a Jag in it?" he said. "If you're ready, we'll come on in. Is he asleep?" The connection broke up. Moments later, Strawn's phone rang. "Much better, yes. No, don't wake him up. We're going to talk to you for about an hour," he said. "I'm going to help you through all that. Okay. Bye-bye."
We drove back to the house at a crawl and got out of the car, easing the doors shut. Both men wore khaki pants and dark blue shirts embossed with a globe logo and the website address of Strawn's company. Strawn walked up the stone pathway, peered in the window of the front door, and lightly rapped. No one answered. "Maybe he said go around the back," Strawn said. "Wait here for a second." He began to walk toward the back of the house when a light came on inside.
A Haitian-American man in his late 40s opened the front door and beckoned us inside. Boussard (his name and the names of his wife and son have been changed) guided us to a dining-room table covered by a white tablecloth. It held a white vase filled with artificial pink flowers and two fat red candles in wrought iron stands. The matching white cushions of the dining-room chairs were covered in plastic. Boussard sat at the head of the table, flanked by his wife, Sandra. In spite of the late hour, they were impeccably dressed?he wore a beige linen suit and she wore a scoop-necked sweater set off by a gold necklace and bracelets. The couple's formality, however, soon gave way to the urgency of the task at hand. Two rooms away on the other side of the kitchen, their 16-year-old son, Louis, Jr., lay asleep in his bedroom.
The Boussards had hired Strawn Support Services to transport Louis, Jr. to Casa by the Sea, a school near Ensenada, Mexico that seeks to "modify" the behavior of troublemaking teens. Casa takes kids who parents have decided are out of control, usually because the teens are talking back, getting poor grades, staying out late, drinking, having sex too soon, or taking drugs.
Louis, Jr.'s parents had not told him that he was going to Mexico?nor how he would be taken there. They thought he would run if he knew what was about to happen. Now they kept glancing in the direction of the kitchen. "Louis is very suspicious," Sandra whispered about her son as her husband began a hurried account of the teen's misbehavior.
The troubles had begun a year earlier when Louis, Jr. was in 10th grade. His grades fell from A's and B's to C's and below. He stopped playing basketball with his father. He started talking back when his mother wouldn't let him go out to clubs with his friends. He broke his curfew, which was 7:30 p.m. during the week and 9 p.m. on the weekends. Often he left the house by his bedroom window. The Boussards thought Louis, Jr. might be smoking pot. Then all of a sudden, his report cards improved dramatically. "I thought, something is not right," said Boussard, squinting at the memory. He discovered a bad report card in his son's backpack, and Louis admitted that he had faked the good ones.
The Boussards enrolled their son in counseling; the counselor said he was doing fine. They sent him to boot camp for a day, where he got anger-management and drug counseling. He behaved better for about a week. At around the same time, Louis was told that he had to repeat 10th grade. His parents transferred him to a vocational program in carpentry at his high school with the hope that he would find the schoolwork easier. Louis hated it.
Strawn listened to this litany of frustrations, nodding sympathetically. Then, he took a breath and started the spiel that he has honed over the course of six years and some 300 transports. "Behavior is as addictive as any drug or alcohol," he told the Boussards. Like all troubled kids, Louis, Jr. needed to recover from his bad behavior. "The way I look at it," Strawn continued, "any good recovery has three components: breaking down old habits, building a strong foundation, and building new habits." But Boussard père was not paying attention. He was still steamed about the fake report cards. "I said 'Something is not right,' " he repeated.
There was a slight noise, and he and his wife jumped.
"Do we need to have Josh go outside?" Strawn asked, referring to his assistant.
"He's very suspicious," Sandra whispered, glancing over her shoulder toward her son's room.
Strawn went outside to make sure that Louis had not climbed out of his bedroom window. The teen seemed to be asleep, but Strawn left Dalton outside to stand guard. On the air conditioner outside the window was a bottle of cologne, which Strawn guessed Louis used to freshen up before his nights out.
Strawn squeaked back into his chair and rushed through his usual script. Now was not the moment to dwell on his own recovery from alcoholism, or to lead the prayer circle that he often suggests before a trip. He ran through what his clients should expect when he entered Louis's room. Strawn advised them to introduce him to Louis, to give their son a hug if Louis let them, and then to walk away. "The hardest thing I ask a parent to do is to turn around and walk out," he said. "Don't come back, no matter what you see or hear."
The mother and father nodded, shifting in their seats. Boussard got a black overnight bag from a closet and handed it to Strawn, along with a check for $1,800. In return, Strawn asked him to sign a notarized power-of-attorney that authorized his company to take "any act or action" on the parents' behalf during the transport to Casa. The document also promised that the couple would not sue for any injuries caused by "reasonable restraint." Strawn warned them that he would take Louis away in handcuffs. The father signed the release, then seemed to have a moment of buyer's remorse. He said he'd been obsessively reading the catalogue for Casa. "All of a sudden, the intensity just takes off," Boussard said about sending his son away. "We feel like we failed."
"Let me help you out there," Strawn reassured him. "I go to families all the time with four or five siblings. Only one of them decided to take this path. If it had anything to do with your parenting skills . . . " His voice trailed off. "It isn't because of that."
"We don't want to see him go to prison or jail," said Boussard, rubbing his hands over his face again and again. "Will he understand what we're trying to do for him?"
Boussard got up from the table with a sigh. The rest of us followed close behind. He walked into the kitchen and took a dinner knife out of a drawer, explaining that he would use it to pry open his son's locked door. Sliding the knife into the crack between the door and the wall, he prepared to enter.
RICK STRAWN IS AN EX-COP WHO STARTED HIS COMPANY in 1988 to help police officers find off-duty work guarding construction sites. Ten years later, he was asked by a member of his United Methodist church to transport the churchgoer's son to Tranquility Bay in Jamaica. The school is run by the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs, a company headquartered in Utah that owns eight schools in the United States and abroad, including Louis, Jr.'s destination.
Strawn said no to that first inquiry because he knew the boy involved. But he had stumbled upon what he now believes is his calling. In his first year of business, he escorted eight teens to behavior modification schools. Since then, his company has transported more than 700 kids between the ages of 8 and 17. Strawn has gone on about half of the trips himself; on the others he has sent agents. Either way, the company generally uses two escorts for the part of a trip that's on the road. Girls are escorted by coed teams; in the early years, Strawn relied on his wife, mother, or older daughter to help him on these trips. Now his wife, Susan, runs the company's office from the family home in the Atlanta suburb of Suwanee. After every trip, she sends the client a card with the message: "Just a note to say thank you for allowing us to assist your family."
Balding and slightly soft in the gut, Strawn is a reassuring 52-year-old. He speaks with a light drawl?he was born in Lubbock, Tex.?and he seems to mean it when he drops endearments like "hon." Strawn's easy manner has won over many parents and school administrators. "He's one of the few escorts who takes the time and effort to talk to the kids," said Karina Zurita, the admissions coordinator at Casa. "He lets kids know that they'll be in good hands."
But if Strawn is decent and likable, he will also go to almost any length to get his charges to do what their parents want. He has chased kids down. He has dragged teens to the car in their underwear. He has used a choke hold, learned as a cop, to render a few others unconscious. He has taken suicidal kids from hospital treatment to reform school.
Most of Strawn's clients are genuinely concerned about their children's welfare. They believe their children are at risk and want to save them. But these parents also revel in forcing their kids to sit up, pay attention, and do what they're told. Glenda Spaulding, who took out four loans to send her 14-year-old daughter to a WWASP school in South Carolina last November, had three words for Strawn before he took the girl away: "Go get her."
Strawn's willingness to use force differentiates him from other escorts. While no one tracks the teen transport industry, those in the business estimate that more than 20 companies nationwide take kids to behavior modification schools, residential treatment centers, and boot camps. Some of the bigger companies are more selective than Strawn about what they'll do. The Center for Safe Youth in Atlanta, for example, doesn't use restraints to force a child to go anywhere. And the center won't transport kids to WWASP schools because educational consultants with whom the company works don't recommend them. Its owner, John Villines, would like to create a professional association to oversee the transport industry. The standards he proposes are rudimentary: no agents with felony convictions or histories of irresponsible driving or drug and alcohol abuse. But they set the bar higher than almost any state does.
Instead of operating by rules, the escort industry runs on trust?the trust that parents won't put their kids in harm's way. But there is no trust between parents and kids in the households that Strawn enters. It has broken down so completely that parents think it's okay, and even courageous, to send a stranger into their child's bedroom. Strawn makes his living from that judgment and he is willing to mislead a child for what he sees as the greater goal of reform.
Once parents put their kids at Strawn's mercy, for a short time he is in loco parentis?in the place of the parent?in the fullest sense of the term. He has the authority to tell a kid what to do and to punish him for failing to obey. At the same time, he is the only person left to cling to when a kid is on the threshold of a scary, unknown world.
Three years ago, Strawn escorted Valerie Ann Heron, a 17-year-old from Montgomery, Ala., to Tranquility Bay. The school is the most hardcore in the WWASP system, the one to which students are sent when they repeatedly cause trouble at other schools. The trip went smoothly, according to Heron's mother, Nell Orange, and Strawn played his role well. "He made her feel comfortable with him. She trusted him. He talked to her about what to expect, where she was going," Orange said. "She gave him a hug when she left him."
The day after that hug, Valerie rushed out of a second-floor classroom and jumped to her death off a 35-foot-high balcony.
The suicide didn't faze Strawn. He didn't ask himself whether he should have taken Valerie to Tranquility Bay and left her there, or whether she needed more help and tenderness than the tough-love school provides. He doesn't even acknowledge that she might have been upset or unhinged enough to kill herself. "We had a really good trip. We were laughing and cutting it up," Strawn recalled. "Was she suicidal? Till the day I die, I won't believe that." Without any evidence, Strawn says that Valerie must have jumped in an effort to run away or in hopes of hurting herself so that she would be sent home. She landed on her head instead of her feet, he thinks, because one foot got caught in the balcony. "My feeling is that the majority of kids who talk about suicide, they're not suicidal," Strawn said. "What they are is manipulative."
LOUIS, JR. SAT STRAIGHT UP IN HIS BED. He was surrounded by three strangers and his parents. His chest was bare, and white acne medicine stood out against the dark skin of his forehead. He grabbed his wire-rimmed glasses from the bedside table and blinked a few times. The basketball posters of Tracy McGrady and Kobe Bryant were still there. His childhood teddy bear sat in a low-slung armchair by the door.
"Do you have some underwear on?" Louis's father said. "They're here to help us. They're here to take you to a school."
Louis shook his head to clear it.
"The only thing we want you to know is that we love you very much," Boussard continued. He and his wife stepped forward to hug Louis, but the gesture was forced and none of them seemed to want the contact.
"Where am I going? When am I coming home?"
Louis's parents walked out the door.
Strawn broke the silence that followed their exit. He launched into what he calls "the scenario," a three-minute script that he instructs his employees to memorize and deliver, right down to a required chuckle. "Personally, I feel like I do it better than anyone else because I designed it," Strawn had explained earlier. The scenario is the key to a smooth escort, he believes. It gives teens time to cool off, weigh their options, and realize that their best course of action is to follow orders.
"I want you to know that we are not here to be bad guys and bullies. We are not here to lecture you, or right-or-wrong you to death," Strawn told Louis. "We are here to get you safely to the school and we are going to do that. But we'll absolutely give you as much respect as you allow us to give you."
Louis stared at him and drummed his leg against the bed.
"Quite frankly, cuffs do not embarrass us," Strawn continued. "But if it goes there, it will be 100 percent your choice." He concluded with the question that the scenario is designed to set up. "I have an important question for you. If you walk out of here cuffed, do you understand that it's 100 percent your choice?"
"Uh-huh," Louis said. He looked around the room. His mind was working but coming up empty. He asked if he could grab his clothes. The answer was no. Instead he was allowed to direct Dalton to hand him a gray t-shirt, a black-and-gray Fubu jersey, and black mesh gym shorts.
"Am I coming home today?" Louis was trying not to cry. He blinked rapidly behind the smudged lenses of his glasses.
"I will not lie to you," Strawn hedged. "I might not answer your questions . . . "
"So when am I coming home?"
"I mean no disrespect, but I learned a long time ago that I don't want to chase you," Strawn plowed on, ignoring Louis's question. He explained that he would handcuff Louis to Dalton. "And son, if you can drag this ugly sucker far and fast enough to get away, well, God bless you, you weren't meant to go." Strawn gave the scripted chuckle.
Louis was still trying to buy time and find a way out. "Can I brush my teeth?" he asked.
Strawn shook his head, and cuffed Louis to Dalton. Strawn wrote his script to give his charges the illusion of control, but he often cuffs the kids, especially boys, no matter what they say. He hustled Louis to the car, guiding him into the back seat along with Dalton, to whom he was still cuffed. Taking the wheel, Strawn explained to his passenger that he would stop talking?"I consider it disrespectful to talk to you in the rearview mirror," he said?until he reached the airport.
At the mention of an airport, Louis said, "Oh, God."
When we arrived at the Tampa airport half an hour later, Strawn took off Louis's handcuffs. As we walked to catch our connecting flight to Atlanta, Dalton grabbed the waistband of the boy's shorts, which rode low on his hips and might have fallen off if Dalton hadn't held fast. The teen rolled his eyes and cracked a piece of gum that Dalton had given him. He was auditioning for the part of bad boy, but the role didn't fit. He was too quick to say "Thank you" and too eager to talk. He had spent the past year bottling those impulses around his parents and chafing at the limits they had set for him. His abduction struck him as the latest outrage. "I don't listen to them, I don't like what they say," he said. "I don't listen to the curfew. I'm not doing that. It's too early."
When his parents bore down, Louis pushed back. He hung out with a crowd they didn't like and he drank and smoked pot. "I came home high once. My father said, 'I know you're high,' " Louis remembered. "Then I went to a one-day boot camp last August. You exercise and they talk to you. I came home high again and he sent me to this juvenile rehab thing that lasted two and a half days. It was pointless."
THERE COMES A POINT IN JUST ABOUT EVERY ONE OF STRAWN'S TRANSPORTS, whether he's soothing a nervous parent or bonding with an upset teen, when he will mention his six-month stint in 1997 at a halfway house for alcoholics. "Seven years ago, I entered recovery. My drug of choice was alcohol. You know far more about where you're going than I knew about myself," he told the 14-year-old girl he escorted last November to a WWASP school in South Carolina. "In my mind, I was kicking and screaming. But the loveliest day of my life was when my wife and mom dropped me off at that halfway house. I can tell you now that it's the best thing that ever happened to me."
That's Strawn's version of the story, which starts a generation earlier. Strawn joined the Atlanta police force in 1973. He'd previously been in sales, but he knew that being a cop would suit him better. "In sales, the customer is always right," he explained. "But as a cop, I'm always right." Strawn relished that authority. "It seems at times he has to have the last word," one of his supervisors noted in an evaluation early in his police career. That's a good thing in a cop, and the reviews Strawn received during this period were uniformly favorable.
Strawn worked many different beats, including patrol, drug enforcement, and homicide. He earned the respect of his colleagues for calming down troublemakers. "They have to think that you might be the toughest guy," he said of the suspects he arrested. "I was able to talk people into doing what we wanted them to do."
Strawn was losing control of his own life, however. He was drinking heavily and in 1992 he was briefly suspended for disappearing from work without explanation. Strawn said that he stayed sober on the job, but the smell of alcohol seeped from his pores. His colleagues complained. Internal Affairs investigated. Strawn tested clean.
Four years earlier, Strawn had married Susan Kyzer, a single mother with a young daughter. Strawn didn't get along with the girl. She had attention-deficit disorder and the Ritalin she took wore off by the time she got home from school. "Her behavior was like a needle point with Rick," Susan said. "He was of the view that kids should be seen but not heard, and this kid was always heard."
In 1996, the stepdaughter told a counselor that Strawn had molested her two years earlier, when she was 12. She'd just gotten home from a school football game, and she was still wearing her green-and-white cheerleader's outfit. She fell asleep on the living-room floor while watching TV with her stepfather. She said that she woke to the feel of something hard against her vagina and ran out of the room. Strawn was arrested for molestation. During the police investigation, he claimed that he'd fallen asleep after drinking, and in his dreams had confused his stepdaughter with his wife. But Susan told the investigators that just after the incident, Strawn had told her that "'it was just a weak moment.' . . . He got turned on by her laying there with a short skirt on and all, and lay down beside her and unzipped his pants against her." Strawn grew depressed and began taking medication. He also admitted to detectives that a year earlier he had fondled the breasts of his niece on two separate occasions, when she was 12 or 13.
The Atlanta police department suspended him for several months. But Strawn's stepdaughter recanted her accusation, leaving prosecutors little choice but to drop the molestation charge. Strawn was taken out of the field, however, and assigned to do desk work. He was no longer the go-to officer. "I was being tolerated," he said. "And for someone with my personality, being tolerated is enough to make you want to get drunk."
One night in January 1997, Strawn went home drunk. After arguing with Susan, he said he was going to shoot himself and he got his .38 revolver out of the garage. "I've had all I can take," he told Susan, his stepdaughter, and the couple's 8-year-old son, Jared. But his threat was, to use his word, manipulation. He fired into the air and left. When he returned home later that evening, he passed out.
The next day, Susan confronted Strawn about his alcoholism, as she had many times in the past. His stepdaughter chimed in that she had snapped a picture of Strawn in his stupor the previous night so that he could see what he'd looked like drunk. Strawn wanted to destroy the roll of film but Susan and her daughter wouldn't let him, because it included a photo of the family cat, which had since died. A struggle ensued, and Strawn kicked the girl in the groin. He then grabbed his wife by the throat, choking her while his stepdaughter called 911.
Strawn left the house and drove to a nearby park, where he continued drinking. Susan and her daughter found him there. Susan tried to calm her husband down. Her daughter called the police. Strawn was arrested and charged with family violence, reckless conduct, and four counts of simple battery?misdemeanor charges that in Georgia together carry a maximum sentence of six years. Less than a month later, he was arrested again when he was found drunk and nearly passed out in his car. He avoided jail by pleading guilty to reckless conduct and a DUI charge.
Strawn likes to say that his wife made him go to the Hickey House Recovery Community. But a judge sent him there, as a condition of his probation. He spent six months at the halfway house while his family stayed away. Strawn hadn't prayed for some time, but he started going to a small church nearby. The defensive stance that he'd adopted slipped away. "Things started loosening up," Strawn said. He felt closer to God. When he got home, Strawn set to work on mending his family. While he was drinking, Susan had considered leaving him. Jared had withdrawn into video games. Now Strawn reached out to them, and they responded. Jared gave his father a cloth bracelet stenciled with the letters WWJD, for "What Would Jesus Do?" Strawn never takes it off.
The Atlanta police department was not as forgiving. In May 1998, it determined that Strawn had "brought discredit" on himself as a police officer, on 11 different counts. His superiors decided to fire him. Strawn opted to retire instead. He left the day before he was due to lose his job after 25 years on the force.
Strawn doesn't try to reconcile his past and his present, perhaps because he is afraid to find that traces of his old self remain. It is safer for him to credit God as the way he "got from there to here." The story of redemption that Strawn spins persuades parents who don't know where to turn that they can rely on him. Strawn was lost, just like the kids he escorts, and it is both his reward and his punishment to tell how he was found. "Working with these kids is like working a 12-step," he said before a recent transport. "Behavior is as addictive as any drugs or alcohol. I plant the seed of recovery."
But Strawn knows that if he is to be trusted to plant that seed, there is no room in his history for criminal lapses of judgment. I spent hours talking to Strawn, and he never mentioned the accusations involving his stepdaughter and niece. Instead he told me about a 15-year-old girl who was apparently discredited when she insinuated that he'd molested her during a 26-hour drive from Indianapolis to a WWASP school in Montana. Strawn said that an assistant was with him and the girl for the entire transport, and that the assistant backed Strawn up when he said he'd done nothing wrong. The school believed them. "That was God watching over me," Strawn said. Otherwise, he continued, "I would not be working in this profession. The cloud of suspicion would have been there." As for his stepdaughter, when I asked Strawn about her accusation, he said that she'd made up the charge to get him help for his alcoholism. She is now 21 and, along with Strawn's niece, works as an escort for Strawn Support Services. But she will not team up with her stepfather.
"WE'VE GOT SOMETHING DIFFERENT HERE," Strawn told the ticketing agent at the checkout counter of Delta Airlines. "We've got someone here we're escorting?not a prisoner, but he doesn't want to go with us." Louis sat with Dalton off to the side, rummaging through the overnight bag that his parents had packed for him. The agent didn't pause. "That's fine," he said with a smile.
Strawn won't board a plane with a kid who puts up too much of a fight?that's why he ended up on that 26-hour drive. But when escorts do fly with protesting kids, airport officials rarely ask questions. Amanda Krassin was taken by plane from Washington to Oregon when she was 16. The escorts, who were from the California company Guiding Hands, asked that she be detained in an airport security area and handcuffed her on the plane. "Everyone ignored me at the airport," Krassin recalled. "I think they just thought I was a prisoner."
On the way to the gate for our flight to Atlanta, Strawn skipped a long line by flashing an auxiliary Coast Guard badge. (He's a member of the group's volunteer squad.) Dalton took Louis to the bathroom. The assistant, who is 25, is fairly new to the job. But Strawn likes to show off Dalton to clients because he attended a WWASP school in Western Samoa called Paradise Cove. The school shut down in 1998 after a State Department investigation into what it determined to be "credible allegations" of abuse, but Strawn doesn't mention that.
"I'm going to make two suggestions," he told Louis when the teen emerged from the bathroom. "First, try to have an open mind. I know it's hard to have an open mind when two ugly guys come and take you from your bedroom at night to a school that you don't want to be at. Second, you've got to be gut-level honest with yourself. The bad part of that is it's a 100 percent inside job."
The world according to Strawn is based on choices and consequences. The world according to WWASP is designed to reinforce the same principle. Students enter Casa by the Sea at the first of six levels. To advance, they have to earn points through good behavior and schoolwork. Until they reach level three, which takes an average of three months, they can communicate with the outside world only through letters to their parents, which the school monitors. After that, they can talk on the phone to their parents but no one else.
Casa costs nearly $30,000 for a year?as much as a year's tuition at Harvard?but offers no traditional academic instruction. Instead the schoolwork is self-paced; the students sit at tables with a workbook and take a test on a section when they decide they're ready. They can retake the same test as many times as necessary to achieve an 80 percent passing grade. According to the Casa parent handbook, the school does not ensure that "the student will even receive any credits" or that the teachers who monitor the study sessions will have U.S. credentials. The school does not track how many of its students go on to high school or college. "You're not going to have a teacher riding your back," Dalton told Louis. "It's all independent study. I just read the module, and did the test. I finished class in a week. That's how easy it is."
Students spend more time studying themselves than any other subject. They write daily reflections in response to self-help tapes and videos such as Tony Robbins's Personal Power, You Can Choose, and Price Tag of Sex. They answer questions like "What feelings/emotions did I experience today and how did I choose to respond?"
Students also attend, and eventually staff, self-help seminars. The entry-level seminar, called Discovery, encourages participants to "learn to interrupt unconscious mental and emotional cycles which tend to sabotage results." Kelly Lauritsen participated in Discovery at Casa in 2000 and said she was encouraged to hit the walls with rolled towels to release her anger. The price of tuition includes versions of these seminars for parents. Like Oprah on speed, sessions run nonstop from morning until midnight. Many parents and kids say they benefit from the self-analysis. "I didn't realize that I had so much anger inside," the 14-year-old girl whom Strawn transported in November wrote to her mother.
WWASP also pays for Strawn and his employees to attend the seminars, and Strawn has done Discovery. He enrolled in the seminar so that he could better sell parents on hiring him, but its talk-until-you're-cured approach forced him to confront buried wounds, such as his father's death a decade earlier. "God had a reason to put me there and it had nothing to do with the business," he said of the experience.
Strawn told Louis that the hardest thing about Casa would be abiding by the school's intricate system of discipline. "It's not the big rules that get you. It's all the little rules," Strawn said. Casa docks students, according to its handbook, for telling "war stories" about inappropriate experiences, for being unkind to each other, and for making "negative statements about the School, the staff, the country, or other students."
"There's a whole page of rules," said Shannon Eierman, who attended Casa last year. "That page is divided into sections of categories, into different codes, and a million subcategories. You could be there forever and the next day and learn a new rule."
Students at Casa who commit "Category 5 infractions" can be punished with an "intervention," for example, which is defined as being left alone in a room. Students say that the punishment can last for weeks, though Casa insists that the maximum penalty is three days. "I had to sit with crossed legs in a closet for three days," said Kaori Gutierrez, who left Casa in 2001. Interventions may be used to punish out-of-control behavior, drug use, and escape attempts. But they're also the way the school handles "self-inflicted injuries," which can range from cracked knuckles to self-mutilation with pens or paper clips to an attempted suicide.
At the root of this long list of punishable violations is "manipulation," which includes lying or exaggerating. Strawn repeatedly uses the word to dismiss a kid's behavior?it's the way he said Valerie Heron acted the day before her suicide. In the WWASP universe that he inhabits, manipulation is a term of art that refers to just about anything a teen does or says that the staff doesn't like.
Still, the schools' intensive monitoring has helped some students turn their lives around. Richard King of Atlanta believes that going to Tranquility Bay in 1997, when he was 17, taught him to be accountable for his actions. The experience saved him from ending up "either dead or in jail," he said. Before he went to the school, King drank, smoked pot, and battled with his parents. When he returned, he could sit down and talk to them.
CALIFORNIA IS THE ONLY STATE WITH A SEMBLANCE OF OVERSIGHT FOR ESCORTS. In response to news accounts in 1997 of a teenage boy from Oakland, Calif., who was transported against his will to Tranquility Bay, the state's legislature developed a bill to protect kids like him. The legislation would have barred escorts from using restraints that interfere with a child's "ability to see, hear, or move freely." By the time it passed, however, the bill had been amended into a toothless licensing scheme.
Nor are there federal controls. In 1923, the Supreme Court announced that parents have a "right of control" that allows them to direct their children's upbringing and education. The court has not budged from this stance since, and, for obvious reasons, it is not listening to the voices of kids who rebel against their parents' dictates. Few people want children?or, for that matter, anyone else?to have veto power over the decisions that parents make. Even the states that permit teenagers to be emancipated from their parents, allowing them to be treated legally as adults, ordinarily mandate that the parents must agree.
As many a frustrated teen knows, the legal framework means that parents get to call the shots. While teenagers can't be jailed by the state without a judge's approval, parents can confine minors against their will for reasons including their mental health. (It's harder to take away the freedom of mentally ill adults.) The Constitution has been interpreted to allow teens effectively to be imprisoned by private companies like Strawn's and private schools like Casa by the Sea?as long as their parents sign off. "If these were state schools or state police, the children would have constitutional protections," said Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, the director of the Center on Children & the Law at the University of Florida. "But because it is parents who are delegating their own authority, it has been very difficult to open the door to protection of the child."
It's even more difficult to open that door once kids have been taken to foreign schools like Casa by the Sea that lie beyond the reach of U.S. courts. "The problem is that when Americans are in another country, they are subject to the laws of that country," said Stewart Patt, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department. "Whether it's a violation of American law is not going to matter to local authorities."
There is one limit on parents: They cannot harm their children. Every state allows the government to intervene if a child or teenager is at risk. The agencies charged with protecting kids get involved if someone reports that a child is being abused. Yet by the time friends and relatives learn of a teen's disappearance and think to make a report, the escort is gone. What matters is getting the kid back from the school that's holding him. It's a nearly impossible task.
A few determined do-gooders have managed it, however. In 1998, 17-year-old Justin Goen was able to call his girlfriend before being taken by escorts to Tranquility Bay. The girlfriend's parents then called the child welfare agency in Justin's hometown of Worthington, Ohio. That set a local judge named Yvette Brown in motion. She heard evidence in juvenile court about spartan conditions, sleep deprivation, and emotional abuse at the school?and ordered Justin home.
The Goens ignored Brown's order, though, and the community cheered them on. "I hope parents are horrified that a public agency can be so intrusive into family life," one reader wrote in a letter to The Columbus Dispatch. After weeks of negotiations, the parents agreed to transfer their son to a WWASP school in Utah. Justin did not thank the state for its troubles. He insisted that his most severe punishment at Tranquility Bay was being told to write two 1,000-word essays.
Jonathan Tyler Mitchell was also sprung from Tranquility Bay. Tyler (he goes by his middle name) had lost his mother when he was young and had never gotten along with his father, Bill Mitchell. In February 2002, Mitchell married his girlfriend of eight months and Tyler moved in with his brother. Mitchell soon asked Tyler to come over for dinner. When the 12-year-old arrived, there were two strangers at the table. They worked for Strawn. Later, they roused Tyler from bed and took him to Jamaica.
What had Tyler done to deserve this wake-up call? According to his father, he had been disrespectful in class, kicked a school locker, talked about suicide, and refused to go to counseling. Tyler's account was different. "I suffer a lot of beatings from my dad," he told a psychologist who evaluated him. "The future is not looking good for me."
Tyler had several relatives, however, who were not willing to leave the boy's future in his father's hands. Gini Farmer Remines, an adult cousin on his mother's side, petitioned a local juvenile court to order his return. When the judge refused, Remines appealed her decision to a circuit court.
At a hearing that followed, three former Tranquility Bay students testified on Tyler's behalf, and what they described was a Caribbean purgatory. The food, they claimed, sometimes contained pubic hair and bugs. Raw sewage spilled over into the boys' shower area and "visible layers of dirt, grime, filth, mildew on the sides of the shower stalls" led to outbreaks of scabies. Students who broke a rule against looking out the window were placed in "observation placement"?forced to lie on the floor, sometimes for weeks at a time, and allowed to sit up only for food or a punitive round of 5,000 jumping jacks.
One of the witnesses, Aaron Kravig, reported that he was at Tranquility Bay in August 2001, the month Valerie Heron died, and that he'd been forced to use a towel that had been used to clean up her remains. The unwashed towel "had a spot of blood about, somewhere about the size of a dinner plate," Kravig testified. "There was some of her hair on it. They used it to pick her head up; I'm pretty sure. I told the staff about it and nothing was done. . . . I had to dry off with that towel for about three weeks."
Mitchell visited the school with his wife after he sent Tyler there and testified that he'd seen kids playing tennis and shooting hoops. But the judge ordered Tyler home. Shortly after his return, the boys' relatives heard that Mitchell had threatened to send Tyler back. Seven of them filed for custody. Gini Remines said that Mitchell gave up and turned Tyler over to her. "Tyler doesn't talk about what happened at Tranquility Bay," Remines said recently. "All he'll say was that it was a hellhole and he might have died in it."
"THE SCHOOL IS IN MEXICO?" Louis said when he noticed the highway signs on our drive south from San Diego. "I thought it was in California."
"I said we were coming to California, not that the school was there," Strawn said. "I was spoon-feeding you until we got here."
Louis fell silent.
Ten minutes later, Strawn drove past a sign that looked like a middle-school art project, with "Mexico" written in green, red, and white. It was now nearly noon. A Mexican flag flapped over a ramshackle collection of buildings, and a film of dust and grit seemed to cloud the bright blue day. Like a tour guide on autopilot, Strawn kept up a running commentary about the sights while his passenger stewed in the back seat. "That's a serious fence," Strawn said, pointing to a 14-foot-high barrier of sheet metal topped with electrical wires which marked the border. "The school is just north of a town called Ensenada. That's your primary cruise destination."
On the dashboard of the Buick LeSabre he had rented for this leg of the journey, Strawn had installed a portable GPS system that Susan had given him for Christmas. But it wasn't working. About a mile past the Mexican border, Strawn missed the Scenic Road exit to Ensenada and drove through Tijuana instead. We passed palm trees and squat bushes with fire-red flowers. Strawn braked at a stop sign that read "Alto," muttering to himself as he tried to find his way back to the highway.
We were back on course and heading through a purple and yellow tollbooth by the time Louis spoke.
"What's the name of the school I'm going to?" he asked as the ocean crashed against the shore near the passenger side of the car.
"Casa. Casa by the Sea," Strawn answered, and hummed the lyrics "down by the sea," from the song "Under the Boardwalk."
"Mi casa es su casa," Dalton ad-libbed.
Strawn told Louis that the Casa grounds used to house a resort. "The nice thing about resorts," he mused, "they usually have walls around them. They keep you from getting involved with the nuts around here, and keep them from you."
A huge half-finished bust of Jesus loomed on a mountain outside the car. Dalton began reminiscing about his time at Paradise Cove. He mentioned that he used to hunt for octopus in the ocean. Strawn pointed to the beach and said that students at Casa hung out there. Louis asked why it was empty.
Strawn answered by changing the subject. "You ought to get there about lunchtime," he said with determined cheer. "And I can tell you, those chubby Mexican women can do a number on some Mexican food."
When a trip is winding down and a kid has been scared into compliance, there is a moment when Strawn likes to wax philosophical. He cribs liberally from Stephen Covey, the author of the bestselling business guide Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He begins with a question: "Have you heard of counting from one to ten if you're mad? Did that ever make sense to you?" Whatever the teen's answer, Strawn says that it didn't make sense to him?until he came across Covey's idea that there is a "space" between stimulus and reaction. To Strawn, that space is the difference between lashing out and maintaining control. "I've learned to spend time in that space when I get mad," Strawn told Louis. "And in the last seven years, I haven't slapped one person upside the head."
The talk works best when Strawn has something tangible to move to?like the letters that parents often give him for their children. The kids used to tear up the letters. But they haven't since Strawn started telling them to spend more time in Covey's "space" before doing anything rash.
The Boussards hadn't written their son a letter, so Strawn did his best on his own to bring Louis around to their way of seeing things. He told the boy not to be angry with his folks. "It's absolutely a sign of love for them to take the chance on what they believe will be the best for you," said Strawn. "When you grow up and have your own family?you have to excuse me?I hope you have the balls to do what your parents are doing for you."
The off-white stucco walls and red shutters of Casa came into view, and a Mexican guard opened a red iron gate. A line of teenagers wearing khaki pants and navy blue jackets walked across the courtyard in single file. A few girls carried baskets full of laundry. The smell of fried chicken wafted through the air. A man in a white turtleneck pointed to Louis and said to Strawn, "This is the kid?" The man directed Louis to grab his bag.
Strawn handed a woman Louis's paperwork?his birth certificate, passport, and the contract with Casa that his parents had signed. When Louis turned and walked away with the man in the white turtleneck, Strawn didn't say goodbye. Then I asked if it was time for us to go and he rushed to catch up with the boy and gave him a hug. Louis looked taken aback by the embrace and there was a moment of awkwardness. Then he hugged back, hard. Strawn collects those hugs. They help him believe that he is saving, not savaging, the kids he steals away with in the night.
When we were back in the car, Strawn put on his sunglasses and lit a cigar, as he likes to do at the end of a trip. He leaned forward in anticipation of the next stops along his journey?a Cuban cigar shop in Tijuana and then a Mexican restaurant in San Diego. He blew out a ring of smoke, and it was as if Louis had never been with us.
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Sad, a former WWASPS kid (Joshua Dalton) now in the business of transporting other kids to WWASPS programs, in handcuffs.
:cry:
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(http://http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/desperate/art/0625coreyc.jpg)
Rest in Peace, Corey.
http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/des ... esp1.shtml (http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/desperate/site-desperate/0702desp1.shtml)
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http://www.teenpaths.org/contact.htm (http://www.teenpaths.org/contact.htm)
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On 2004-06-27 16:38:00, Anonymous wrote:
"http://www.teenpaths.org/contact.htm"
http://www.isaccorp.com/wwasp/documents ... erview.pdf (http://www.isaccorp.com/wwasp/documents/Teen_Help_Programs_Overview.pdf)
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On 2004-06-27 14:52:00, Anonymous wrote:
Rest in Peace, Corey.
http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/des ... esp1.shtml (http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/desperate/site-desperate/0702desp1.shtml)
"
Well, if this doesn't send a message, I don't know what does. Poor Kid...
And the parent's reaction, STILL? "oh he would have died years before..." So I guess it was all worth it, huh?
Maybe someone ought to invent a program for parents who give into propograndist political peer pressure... because that's exactly what it is!
WAKE UP, PEOPLE!!! THESE PROGRAMS ARE POISON!!!!
:flame:
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So this mom had 2 kids at one time in a WWasps program, and Corey was in several programs for almost 3 years? Am I reading this right????
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Teenpaths.org and teenhelp and familyfirstaid - What other names are the WWASPS using to identify thier abusive programs. This one is so innocent looking - in baby pink and blue with a baby laying in roses at the top corner.
This is just an example of the extremely deceptive advertising that is used to cash in on families in crisis.
How many other alias's are there for WWASP programs. I've read so many horror stories about children who have been tortured in a WWASP facility. They should all be shut down for deceptive advertising alone. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Mark Twain
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I doubt it would be possible to count them all up. You know they are now setting interested parents up with their own web site to help market the program? Each one would have a different title but all would be marketing the program. I got an email from Jane explaining all about it.
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On 2004-06-28 20:23:00, Anonymous wrote:
"So this mom had 2 kids at one time in a WWasps program, and Corey was in several programs for almost 3 years? Am I reading this right????"
Doesn't sound at all unusual. Of the six kids in my family, 4 went through The Seed, one of my brothers went through twice, and I landed in Straight. See, they're basically hysterical and paranoid. Druggiekids are everywhere! And they're sneeky, so you have to be hip to the inside info. on how to spot `em! If one kid caught it, then the others did too. If one dose of the cure doesn't do it, dose `em up again.
Program parents are the same people who, 150 years ago, would spend the tax money on bottle after bottle of snake oil. Or the same as those who take out 2nd and 3rd mortgages on their homes, neglect their marriages and children, etc., cause the just know if they dedicate themselves completely enough to AmWay they'll be laughing all the way to the bank in no time!
Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic, and have no place in a Republic. The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.
--Abridged quote-Benjamin Rush, M.D., a signer of the Declaration of Independence
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Not good, not good at all. These parents lack objectivity (read CONFLICT OF INTEREST).
:scared:
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Are these Daltons (Dina Dalton, Teen Paths) and Joshua Dalton (transporter for Rick Strawn's company mentioned in the article) related? Just curious if they are somehow related or if this is just a coincidence.
:???:
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On 2004-06-29 12:58:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Are these Daltons (Dina Dalton, Teen Paths) and Joshua Dalton (transporter for Rick Strawn's company mentioned in the article) related? Just curious if they are somehow related or if this is just a coincidence.
:???: "
Excerpt from letter written by Dina Dalton
"It is my belief that family enrichment is essential in creating a new family dynamic. The families of our teens in the Programs are an integral part of the healing process as their teen grows with a sense of honesty and integrity through their journey. I fully understand this, as I too, am a parent whose teen went down this same path of self - destruction. Fortunately I learned about WWASPS, took that leap of faith and invested in his future (saving his life)
and placed him in the Program. I have 'walked in your shoes.' Today four years later, my son has successfully completed the Program and is out in the `real world' creating tremendous successes for himself."
Source: http://www.isaccorp.com/wwasp/documents ... erview.pdf (http://www.isaccorp.com/wwasp/documents/Teen_Help_Programs_Overview.pdf)