Mel Riddile goes local

[Anonymous]

Flew the Coop



Joined: 10 Aug 2006
Posts: 1

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:32 am    Post subject: Who is Mel Riddile? (Straight, Inc. 5515 Backlick Road)     
www.thestraights.com

Does anyone know any Straight survivors in the area? I heard they are planning a memorial service for the former child prisoners who committed suicide after being abused and tortured. Straight was a private prison and thought reform institution for teenagers on Backlick Road in Springfield. It opened in 1982 and closed in the early 90's when it pretty much had to shut down once some major lawsuits and abuse allegations hit the fan in the D.C. area.

Mel Riddile thought it was a great way to "help" kids who were just being teenagers in Fairfax County. None of those children ever deserved what they got in Straight: public ridicule, complete stripping away of rights including privacy in the bathroom, marathons of physical and verbal abuse in walk-in closet sized rooms, food and sleep deprivation, the list of child abuse goes on.

Mel Riddile helped open up other branches of Straight. There is still one in Ohio that is now called "Pathways Family Center", or "Kids Helping Kids". It's Straight by another name, and Mel Riddile won't say anything to help the kids who are being abused right now, thirty years after Straight first opened up in Florida in 1976.

Mel Riddile has some big power connections. I don't expect this post to last up here. I have stated nothing but the facts mixed in with the lump in my throat. Thousands of kids got abused in there, some for years. Many of these kids, now adults, have long-lasting psychological and physical scars. And yet Mel Riddile goes on to win "Principal of the Year" awards, and he gets to sweep his sordid history of running an institution internationally known for child abuse under the rug.

Take your last sentence there. It is not untrue, in fact, it is true, but it isn't facts. Unless you find something on Riddile and Mathews proving that Mathews purposefully whitewashed the Straight story, lied to a survivor who offered to put him in touch with witnesses, or in any other way ignored a story because he was coerced or favored for doing so, and that the Ombudsman at the Post purposefully ignored repeated phone calls asking to deal with a reporter who lied to a source by coercion or favor, you really can't prove that Riddile "gets to" sweep stuff under the rug. I understand that you might be referring to larger social forces that let him slide, but take my advice here. If you want to get something published on that message board (there might actually be better ones), you are going to have to approach the subject slightly differently. Rather than writing a political speech, approach this as journalism. You can be impassioned and relentless in your pursuit of the story, but the story itself has to be reported by a certain standard. If you want passionate voices, then you interview survivors and quote them. Note that I am referring to writing something for this particular message board that you are trying to access as an outlet for information, distinct from other kinds of writing and publication venues.

[Anonymous]

Just a friendly clarification here,  :wink:

It is fact to those who have personally spoken to either or both Riddile and Mathews that the straight inc THE TRUTH story was whitewashed several times. It is also fact amongst at least to those who have personally spoken to either or both Riddile, Mathews and reporters, that the Washington Post editorial staff refuses to continue discussing the issue of Riddile, abuse from his time as director and failure to acknowledge daily abuses taking place at currently operating programs that use the straight inc model. This includes Riddile's 2006 blatant violation of civil rights at his new job. Please know that there is a minimal paper trail proving these statements as facts since most of the whitewashing has been done over the phone and by simply ignoring email, faxes, calls. They are facts though.    8-)



"Take your last sentence there. It is not untrue, in fact, it is true, but it isn't facts. Unless you find something on Riddile and Mathews proving that Mathews purposefully whitewashed the Straight story, lied to a survivor who offered to put him in touch with witnesses, or in any other way ignored a story because he was coerced or favored for doing so, and that the Ombudsman at the Post purposefully ignored repeated phone calls asking to deal with a reporter who lied to a source by coercion or favor, you really can't prove that Riddile "gets to" sweep stuff under the rug."

[Anonymous]

Straight survivors with faces other survivors recognize are the only ones I can trust now.

[Anonymous]

It takes 50,000 straightlings to screw in a lightbulb, and another someodd 10,000 staffers.

One to screw it in, the other 499,000 to fuck, suck, lick, and generally sodomize and incestualize each other; pissing, scatting, rusty trumpeting, dirty sanchezing, flute slurpeling, pussy scatting, cocksmoking, cumming, kicking, confronting, marathoning, felating, puking violently, punching, spitting, felching, farting and just generally hurting one another while the one poor fucker tries to get the lightbulb in. I forgot to mention that the paid staff has to get involved in all of this while the one straightling is screwing in the lightbulb.