Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry

Rare video of children being abused at Pasadena boot camp

<< < (6/9) > >>

Ursus:
Chances are, these boot camp instructors haven't had a whole lotta training in "electrolyte management." From the below article:

On Tuesday, an expert in the affects of fluids on the body said drinking too much water could easily turn deadly.

Dr. Harlan Bixby of Arcadia, a retired nephrologist who worked at City of Hope, said "tap water, unlike liquids that include normal concentrations of electrolytes (salts), freely enters every cell in the body and results in cellular swelling."

While such cellular swelling does little damage to muscle cells, it can wreak havoc in the brain, Bixby said.

"There is nowhere for the swelling to expand, except to push against the brain stem," he said.

The results can be similar to a stroke and can lead to brain damage or death, especially in children, he said.

"The cellular swelling from a glass or two extra of electrolyte-free water for an adult is multiplied in children because it is distributed over a smaller volume of body fluids," he said.[/list][/size]

-------------- • -------------- • --------------

Pasadena Star-News
Boot camp instructors forced children to drink water as form of discipline, former cadet says

Brian Charles, Staff Writer
Posted: 11/01/2011 07:20:04 PM PDT

PASADENA - Drill instructors commonly forced children to drink water until they vomited as a form of discipline at Pasadena-area boot camps, according to a former cadet.

Alejandra Montagner, 18, of West Covina, said Tuesday the practice known as "smoking" was meted out as a punishment.

Montagner said she attended Keith "Sarge" Gibbs' Sarge's Community Base/Commit II Achieve Camp between 2008 and 2009.

"They would have the bad kids getting smoked," Montagner said. "The instructors would make us hold the water bottles over our head to make sure we were finished. If any drops fell on our heads, they made us refill the bottle and drink more."

Alejandra's father Silvino Montagner, 38, said he also witnessed the use of "smoking," but said he trusted that the technique was safe.

"It was something new for us," Silvino Montagner said. "We thought it was OK for them to `smoke' them."

This newspaper released two boot camp videos on its website last week. One shows Kelvin "Sgt. Mac" McFarland urging children who have vomited to drink more water.

In the second video, boot camp instructors, including McFarland, are seen screaming at a boy, who is wearing a truck tire around his neck. The boy subsequently falls to the ground in tears.

Gibbs is heard on one of the videos. He denies that he was present during the taping of either video.

McFarland worked for Gibbs during the time of the taping. In August of 2009, McFarland started his own rival boot camp, Family First Growth Camp. McFarland also denies being in the videos.

Gibbs claims the Montagner family is trying to incriminate him.

"Those are also the people that left with Mr. McFarland and of course they are going to say that," Gibbs said Tuesday. "The proof of the matter is I am not in the video."

McFarland was arrested on May 27 on suspicion of kidnapping, extortion, child abuse, child endangerment and unlawful use of a badge.

The charges stem from a May 16 incident where McFarland allegedly kidnapped a truant Pasadena school girl and extorted money from her family. He is scheduled to return to court Nov. 16.

Meanwhile, the Pasadena Police Department last week launched an investigation into whether any crimes occurred in the two videos. So far, no arrests have been made and no charges have been filed.

Parents of children enrolled in both camps have been reluctant to come forward with information and some have not been fully cooperative with the authorities, sources close to the investigation said.

On Tuesday, an expert in the affects of fluids on the body said drinking too much water could easily turn deadly.

Dr. Harlan Bixby of Arcadia, a retired nephrologist who worked at City of Hope, said "tap water, unlike liquids that include normal concentrations of electrolytes (salts), freely enters every cell in the body and results in cellular swelling."

While such cellular swelling does little damage to muscle cells, it can wreak havoc in the brain, Bixby said.

"There is nowhere for the swelling to expand, except to push against the brain stem," he said.

The results can be similar to a stroke and can lead to brain damage or death, especially in children, he said.

"The cellular swelling from a glass or two extra of electrolyte-free water for an adult is multiplied in children because it is distributed over a smaller volume of body fluids," he said.

Video: Exclusive: Inside teen boot camps
Uploaded by SGVNews on Oct 31, 2011
Disturbing video obtained by the Star-News offers an inside look at Pasadena-based children's boot camps. Read more: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_19201990[/list]

brian.charles@sgvn.com
twitter.com/JBrianCharles
626-578-6300, ext. 4494


Copyright © 2011 Los Angeles Newspaper group

Ursus:
Ah, the courage, honesty and accountability of boot camp directors... it doesn't get much better than this. From the above article:

This newspaper released two boot camp videos on its website last week. One shows Kelvin "Sgt. Mac" McFarland urging children who have vomited to drink more water.

In the second video, boot camp instructors, including McFarland, are seen screaming at a boy, who is wearing a truck tire around his neck. The boy subsequently falls to the ground in tears.

Gibbs is heard on one of the videos. He denies that he was present during the taping of either video.

McFarland worked for Gibbs during the time of the taping. In August of 2009, McFarland started his own rival boot camp, Family First Growth Camp. McFarland also denies being in the videos.[/list][/size]

Ursus:
Comments left for the above article, "Boot camp instructors forced children to drink water as form of discipline, former cadet says" (by Brian Charles, 11/01/2011, Pasadena Star-News):


Pat Cardamone · November 1 at 11:07pm
We need a nationwide task force to root-out all of these places and shut them down and bring the perpetraitors to justice. Tough love does not mean just being tough - and love does not consist of physically or emotionally inflicted pain. If you are abusive to children in the name of "saving" or "teaching" them, then your very inexperienced parents led you up the wrong path. Just because you love them does not mean they were right to punish you the way they did, and just because they punished you and you turned out "all-right" does not mean that you could not have been an even higher achiever with much more to accomplish. You never ever have to hit a child. You never ever have to punish them physically or emotionally batter them. If you do, then YOU are the problem and need to get help, and while you're at it - get your kids help, too. Love. Only true Love works. Use your brain, don't inflict pain.Jasmine Velazquez · San Diego, California · November 1 at 9:38pm
I experienced this and worse at a camp called BUYA based out of La Puente, CA. Many other victims have found me on fb and shared horrible stories of torture...water boarding...knives held up to them..being beat for 30 minutes.. This program is still running.

Copyright © 2011 Los Angeles Newspaper group

Ursus:
Pasadena Star-News
S P E C I A L · R E P O R T
Parents turn to boot camp for discipline

By Brian Charles, Staff Writer
Posted: 11/05/2011 07:09:13 AM PDT


This still image is taken from video obtained by the Pasadena Star-News. In portions of the video, Family First Growth Camp owner and operator Kelvin McFarland can be seen while children are being forced to exert themselves to the point of vomiting. McFarland and other boot camp operators are also seen in the video yelling at a child as he cries. McFarland was arrested on May 27 and charged with kidnapping, child abuse, false imprisonment, extortion and unlawful use of a badge stemming from a separate incident in Pasadena.

PASADENA - Boot camps often serve as hired disciplinarians for parents fearful of the fallout that could result from spanking their children, according to a parent who enrolled three of his children in a Pasadena camp.

"In Mexico, you hit your children and the police don't get involved," said Silvino Montagner, 38, of West Covina. "In America, you hit you kids and the police and the social workers get involved. So you send your kids to boot camp because you can't discipline your kids."

It is legal to spank your children in California, as long as the discipline is reasonable and doesn't inflict bodily harm, according to state law.

However, fearful of what a spanking might lead to in terms of involvement from the authorities, Montagner sent his two girls, Alejandra Montagner and Marlene Montagner and his son to Sarge's Community Base/Commit II Achieve Camp in Pasadena in 2008.

"My girls weren't listening to us," Montagner said. "They were getting into trouble, they were cursing and had boyfriends."

As social norms shift away from corporal punishment, and parents lose their sense that they have control of their children, boot camps have become appealing, said Robert Larzalere, professor of human development and family science at Oklahoma State University and an expert on parental discipline.

"When we look at these parents, they don't feel empowered and that leads to people looking at these boot camps, because they don't feel they have parental authorities," Larzalere said.

The parents entrust the boot camps to mete out discipline and often don't object to harsh treatment such as "smoking," a practice where children are forced to drink water to the point of vomiting, Montagner said.

Smoking was employed as a tactic at Sarge's Community Base/Commit II Achieve Camp, Montagner said.

Tough love boot camp have come under scrutiny in recent weeks after this newspaper published two videos on its website showing harsh treatment of children in the care of boot camp drill instructors.

In one of the videos, drill instructors are "smoking" children - urging them to binge on drinking water to the point of vomiting.

According to Dr. Harlan Bixby, an expert on the effect of fluids in the body, "smoking" could be fatal.

In a second video, a pre-teen boy is seen carrying a truck tire around his neck. Drill instructors, including one active duty Marine, can been seen berating the boy until he falls to the ground in tears.

Kelvin "Sgt. Mac" McFarland, who runs Family First Growth Camp can be seen in both videos.

The voice of Keith "Sarge" Gibbs can be heard on one of the videos.

Both men deny being present during either taping.

Boot camp operators promise parents marked improvement in their child's behavior; they also play on the fears of parents insisting that boot camps are their last resort.

"The system can't help you until your child gets into trouble," Gibbs said.

But any claims that boot camps can make permanent changes in a child's behavior ignores what development experts know about the adolescent psyche.

"I think many of them believe it changes people for life, but the adolescent brain is not wired like that," said Joyce Burrell, director of the juvenile justice program in Human and Social Development for American Institute for Research. "The adolescent brain is malleable as a three-year-old."

Far from a cure-all, Silvino Montagner found boot camps did little to change his daughters' behavior.

He pulled Alejandra Montagner from the boot camp after she initiated what her father termed an inappropriate relationship with a drill instructor.

"It wasn't illegal because of their ages, but I thought an instructor should never date one of the cadets," he said.

Marlene Montagner, who ascended to the rank of junior drill instructor at Gibbs camp, is currently in jail for theft.

"In general boot camps make kids worse," Larzalere said. "Boot camps are the number one example of a scared straight style treatment where kids get worse."

Larzalere, an advocate for the proper use of spanking, said the shock treatments used in boot camps are less effective than appropriate spanking.

Boot camps were stylish in the 1990s. Juvenile detention experts in states across the country "thought the discipline and the regimentation was effective."

Since then, states, school districts and municipalities have cooled to the idea of contracting with boot camps.

"Once these programs were evaluated, we saw they were no better than leaving children alone," Burrell said. "They are modeled on a military training or get-tough approach, but it didn't have a long-lasting impact on children."

During her time as the director of Division of Juvenile Justice for the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, Burrell gained first-hand knowledge of the dangers of boot camps and the drill instructors who are often bent on discipline.

"In the boot camp some of the officers kicked children and held children on the ground some with their knees in the children's backs," Burrell said.

Many of the children in boot camps are saddled with a host of emotional problems, which require more attention than what's available at a boot camp.

"A lot of times (the children) have undiagnosed special needs, it may be reaction to traumatic exposure," Burrell said. "We need to get to the source of that so we can teach some different behavior and it's not a boot camp that's going to teach that."

brian.charles@sgvn.com
twitter.com/JBrianCharles
626-578-6300, ext. 4494


Copyright © 2011 Los Angeles Newspaper group

Ursus:
Comment left for the above article, "Parents turn to boot camp for discipline" (by Brian Charles, 11/05/2011, Pasadena Star-News):


Phd Everit · Top Commenter · 15 hours ago
In light of the Judge Adams video,

We often hear from those who fight to uphold this practice for those under the age of 18 (even to the blaming of the social maladies of the day on a supposed "lack" of it), but we rarely, if ever, find advocates for the return of corporal punishment to the general adult community, college campuses, inmate population, or military. Why is that?

Ask ten unyielding proponents of child/adolescent/teenage-only "spanking" about the "right" way to do it, and what would be abusive, indecent, or obscene, and you will get ten different answers.

These proponents should consider making their own video-recording of the "right way" to do it.

Visit Unlimited Justice or Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education to learn more and add your voice.

Copyright © 2011 Los Angeles Newspaper group

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page