Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > News Items
St. John's Military School - Violence Alleged
Ursus:
Here's the short AP teaser, prior to publication of a longer article by Mike Strand the following day:
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Salina Journal
Military school seeks gag order in abuse lawsuit
3/15/2012
By the Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — St. John's Military school in Salina is asking a federal judge to bar the plaintiffs and lawyers in a lawsuit alleging abuse of former cadets from talking publicly about the case.
Attorneys for St. John's filed a motion Thursday in federal court in Kansas City seeking a gag order in the lawsuit by parents claiming their sons were repeatedly beaten by higher-ranking students in charge of discipline.
U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum scheduled a Tuesday hearing on the motion.
St. John's contends public discussion would prejudice its ability to get a fair trial. The school issued a statement Wednesday saying it was studying the allegations but denying the existence of a "culture of abuse."
St. John's has settled nine other lawsuits filed since 2006 alleging abuse.
Read more about the lawsuit in Friday's Journal.
Copyright © 2012 Salina Journal and MediaSpan
Ursus:
...And here's that longer article:
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Salina Journal
St. John's seeks gag order in lawsuit
3/16/2012
By MICHAEL STRAND
Attorneys for St. John's Military School are seeking a gag order in a lawsuit filed against the school last week, saying pretrial publicity could make it difficult for the school to receive a fair trial.
The motion for the gag order was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City.
Last week, families of four former students filed a lawsuit against the Salina military school, alleging a "culture of abuse," and that high-ranking cadets meted out beatings to maintain discipline.
The lawsuit received wide publicity in the Kansas news media starting with a story in the Salina Journal on Wednesday, though it was reported on earlier by at least two niche websites, Courthouse News Service and Conservative Babylon.
That publicity, along with various media interviews given by attorney for the four families, Daniel Zmijewski, will make it harder for the case to get a fair trial, St. John's argues.
"...not only is plaintiffs' counsel brazenly talking about the suit in public, but he is doing it in a forum where witnesses and/or potential jurors reside," the motion states. "Plaintiffs' counsel has taken his argument public, in a forum where defendants have no recourse or means in which to defend themselves, in a clear effort to tamper with the jury pool and/or win favor in the public domain."
U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum set a hearing on the motion for Tuesday.
St. John's issued a statement Wednesday saying it was studying the allegations and denying the existence of a "culture of abuse" at the military school.
-- Reporter Mike Strand can be reached at 822-1418 or by email at mstrand@salina.com.
Copyright © 2012 Salina Journal and MediaSpan
Reddit TroubledTeens:
http://www.necn.com/03/20/12/Judge-deni ... fdc291f57d
Judge denies gag order in military school lawsuit
Mar 20, 2012 7:13pm
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge declined Tuesday to impose a gag order in a lawsuit accusing a Kansas military school of allowing older students to discipline younger ones and fostering a culture of abuse.
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Lawyers for St. John's Military School had sought to bar parties involved in the case from talking publicly after an attorney for the plaintiffs granted media interviews soon after filing the lawsuit this month. The plaintiffs, the parents of four former cadets, had called the request an attempt by the school to violate their free-speech rights.
St. John's attorney Derek Johannsen told U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum the motion was intended to keep the lawsuit from being tried in "a public forum."
"This case has drawn a significant amount of media attention already," Johannsen said.
But Lungstrum denied the motion.
Plaintiffs' attorney Dan Zmijewski, meanwhile, said he planned to file a motion to prevent St. John's students from purging their Facebook pages of anything that might be related to the plaintiffs' claims.
Court records show that since 2006, the military-style boarding school in Salina has settled nine lawsuits filed by parents, including one last year in which a federal judge found the school knew about the potential for hazing yet allowed higher-ranking cadets to discipline students.
The school has denied the claims.
"St. John's denies that there was a culture of abuse, lack of institutional control, failure to supervise or any kind of cover-up as alleged by the attorney for the parents who have sued," school officials said in a statement released last week.
A lawsuit settled last year included photos of a cadet's arm that had been branded with a hot, star-shaped medal as part of his initiation into "headquarters company" at the school. A school official acknowledged in a deposition that at least 10 other students were similarly branded but the school did not investigate them.
The cadet testified during a deposition that a couple of days before he was branded, he was subjected to "saber swats" on his bare skin by a captain for joining the new company. The sabers are part of the parade uniform of ranking cadets. The boy testified that the swats hurt "really bad."
The school sought to have the last abuse case thrown out, arguing there was no evidence of bad faith by the school and that the school made reasonable efforts to stop hazing. U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia rejected the school's request in 2009, noting court records suggest that despite knowing the students were using sabers to swat other students, St. John's staff allowed certain students to wear them.
The judge also said there was evidence that St. John's did not investigate certain instances of branding. The school subsequently settled that lawsuit and the case never went to trial.
The current lawsuit contains similar allegations of "saber swatting" and other beatings, but makes no claim that brandings still go on at the school.
___
Associated Press writer Roxana Hegeman in Wichita contributed to this report.
wdtony:
Great news, I did not expect that. I guess it is becoming obvious to the judge what is going on.
wdtony:
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/24/35 ... buses.html
Amended suit alleges new abuses at Kansas school
BY ROXANA HEGEMAN
Associated Press[/b]
WICHITA, KAN. -- A California boy attends only four days at a Kansas military boarding school where he is tormented by staff and students after breaking both his legs in separate incidents. A Tennessee student's stomach is forcibly branded as a rite of initiation. A Florida cadet breaks his hand fending off a student with a history of sexual abuse who tries to grope him, and school officials refuse to investigate or inform his parents of the attack.
These claims are the latest additions to a growing list of former cadets who allege in a federal lawsuit they were abused at St. John's Military School in Salina, Kan. An amended complaint filed Friday in federal court in Kansas City, Kan., now includes six sets of named parents who have filed on behalf of cadets, plus one ex-cadet who is now an adult. The plaintiffs come from California, Florida, Tennessee, Colorado, Texas and Illinois.
The Episcopal boarding school, which charges families nearly $30,000 per year for students enrolled in grades 6-12, draws students from across the nation.
Two new defendants are named in the revised lawsuit: The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America and the Episcopal Diocese of Western Kansas, entities which the suit says created the school.
"The parents of these kids don't want any other kids to suffer the way their kids did," said Dan Zmijewski, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys.
Their lawsuit, which was initially filed March 5, contends that the school allows and encourages older students to physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually abuse young students. According to court filings, the legal action purports to chronicle a "dangerous and disturbing culture at a boy's military school which must end."
St. John's has settled nine previous abuse-related lawsuits filed since 2006, court records show.
Amid widening media coverage of the latest lawsuit, more parents and cadets are coming forward with stories of abuse, Zmijewski said.
"It is just more kids who suffered extreme abuse at the hands of students while staff is watching - and is more indicative of what is going on there," he said.
Derek Johannsen, an attorney for St. John's, sent an email statement Saturday on the school's behalf. In it, he said the school denies the existence of a culture of abuse, and pointed out that St. John's has a 120-year history of helping young men develop skills in a safe environment.
"(The school's) objective is to provide a rigorous academic environment, opportunity for religious introspection and a structured campus life to help develop young men with the highest degree of self-discipline and self-confidence," the statement read.
Johannsen also wrote that some of the allegations in the lawsuit were investigated by law enforcement and no charges were filed. He said a formal response to the amended complaint will be filed soon.
In a separate settlement last year, the school argued it had made reasonable efforts to curb abuses, noting military schools nationwide have a problem with hazing. St. John's installed surveillance cameras in the hallways and instituted weekly bruise checks.
The new filing includes as an exhibit the California boy's X-ray, showing abuse so severe that the right femur bone was displaced several inches above the knee. Also included in the court filing is a photograph that had been posted on Facebook depicting a uniformed cadet from Texas gagged, blindfolded and bound with black duct tape.
Other allegations come from a Texas boy who was urinated on by other students in the shower, a Colorado student who was beaten in a van in front of a faculty member after trying to hitchhike home to escape earlier abuse and an Illinois cadet who suffered a fractured eye socket after being kneed in the head.
Posted on Sat, Mar. 24, 2012 03:06 PM
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/24/35 ... rylink=cpy
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