Charges in WilCa death (finally)

[idioteque]

http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/hall/ ... p?ID=94295

Access North Georgia (by the Associated Press)

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CLEVELAND - Six counselors at a state-run wilderness camp for troubled boys near Cleveland have been charged with murder in the death of a 13-year-old boy who was restrained for more than an hour earlier this year.

A White County grand jury handed down the charges of felony murder, child cruelty and involuntary manslaughter Monday.

"This is all based on the criminal negligence or reckless conduct of these individuals," said White County District Attorney Stan Gunter. "It was due to the restraint, and how they applied it, that has led to these charges."

Travis Parker died April 21, a day after he was held face down by counselors at the Appalachian Wilderness Camp. The boy had angrily confronted one of the counselors for denying him food as punishment.

Parker had asthma and was denied his inhaler during the restraint. A medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.

An attorney for one of the counselors, Mathew Desing, said the counselors restrained the boy as they had been taught.

"They were doing what they were trained to do," attorney Abbi Guest said. "This is clearly not a case of counselors gone awry."

Desing "cared very much for the children he worked with, and he cared very much for the job of helping those children," she said.

But Gwen Skinner, an official at the Georgia Department of Human Resources, which oversees the camp, said the counselors were not following agency rules or procedures.

"We do not train staff to do face-down restraints," she said.

The other five counselors who were indicted were: Ryan Chapman, Paul Binford, Torbin Vining, Johnny Harris and Phillip Elliott.

Travis, who was from Douglas County, had been sent to the camp in February. He was on probation after hitting his grandmother, who raised him, and threatening her with a knife.

Since the incident, the state has retrained staff on the use of restraints and is reviewing its policies on when restraints may be used, officials said.  


©Copyright 2005 AccessNorthGa.com / WDUN News/Talk 550.

[Anonymous]

That is just so sad.  That poor boy!  To think in his short life, that his final days were spent being sent away to a strange place in the harsh wilderness, introduced to an absurd set of rules and regulations, a heavy pack, and a group of other forlorn and forsaken children.  No doubt they had rules on when they could speak, what they could say, and how much energy they had to exert, how they had to act every second of the daily routine.  I really wonder what a thirteen-year-old asthmatic boy could have done that would make them deny his food?  I also wonder if the staff wanted to crush him in the restraint in order to scare him into keeping quiet about his missed meal.  The boy's dead so we'll never be able to ask him.  The only witnesses are the counselors and the kids, most of which, if under 18, still live under the guardianship or their parents- parents that also had no qualms about sending their child to the Appalachian Wilderness Camp.

"The manner in which they performed that restraint is what caused his problem," the district attorney said in an interview. "For all practical purposes, his heart stopped and he did not get enough oxygen to the brain, which led to his death."
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0605/02camp.html


have you seen this boy's picture?  He looks so young!  He's a very clean-cut boy, wearing a  turtleneck under a v-neck sweater.  He's black, with short neat hair, and a sincere smile with nice, straight teeth.  He's not a statistic.  He was a real human child and now he's a spirit.  Nobody deserves to die like that. No one.

[Anonymous]

He was only 13...  :cry: