Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Public Sector Gulags

Death at Leake & Watts

<< < (2/2)

Reddit TroubledTeens:
http://www.lohud.com/article/20120420/N ... -takedown-

Family's lawyer likens teen's death to 'street takedown'
8:39 PM, Apr. 20, 2012  |  

Written by
Shawn Cohen and
Rebecca Baker

YONKERS — The staff members who restrained Corey Foster at Leake & Watts residential treatment center abandoned their training and piled onto the 16-year-old Wednesday as if they were a gang executing a “street takedown,” a newly retained lawyer for the boy’s family told The Journal News on Friday.

The personal injury lawyer stopped shorting of blaming staff for the boy’s death, but said he was in “great health” and had no pre-existing conditions that could have caused him to go into cardiac arrest on his own.

“They trusted these people to watch their son,” said Jacob Oresky, who spent four hours Friday with the parent, Sheila and Andre Foster, who live in New York City. “It was almost as if it was a street takedown by a gang. The training that these caregivers had must have gone out the window, and their wild side took over.”

Two students said they saw several staff members pile onto Foster after he became angry at being ordered to leave the court. Another witness, William Green, said Foster shouted, “I can’t breathe!” twice as eight staffers took him down. He said Foster took a shot that ricocheted off the basket and hit an employee. Another worker pushed Foster against a wall, Foster “went for his leg,” and staffers piled on, Green said. He said one staffer punch Foster in the head.

Police said the boy went into cardiac arrest as “multiple” staff members restrained him. Officials at Leake & Watts said Friday that witnesses’ more detailed accounts are “not based in truth.”

“To our understanding, none of that happened,” Meredith Barber, the center’s director of institutional advancement, said.

Yonkers police and the Westchester District Attorney’s Office would not share results of an autopsy conducted Friday, nor would they discuss video surveillance footage taken from the gym or the conflicting accounts given by Leake & Watts and witnesses.

Oresky, the family’s lawyer, said the family has yet to hear from authorities about the autopsy, but were told by someone at the school that he died from aspyxiation, choking on his own vomit during the confrontation.

(Page 2 of 2)

He said the parents are also not yet being permitted to see video from the gym, though they feel a “sense of urgency to see the last minute or two of their son’s life.”

“I don’t think under any circumstances that the way they (staff) handled this can be justified,” Oresky said. “Either there was an excessive use of force or they failed to assist him while he was in need of aid. I don’t want to get into the legal terminology and say whether it was assault or negligence. Something was terribly wrong in the way they handled the situation.”

Foster, who suffered from learning problems, attended Leake & Watts as a day student for a couple years before becoming a resident in either 2009 or 2010, Oresky said. He was plannig to visit his family this weekend to celebrate his 17th birthday, which falls on Wednesday of next week.

Instead, the family will hold a private funeral Monday.

“Corey was very much loved, and they trusted this institution, this school, with their precious child,” Oresky said. “No words can describe their pain.”

The Office of Children and Family Services and Department of Education, which have oversight roles at the facility, have initiated their own probe of the death, a spokesperson for the education department said.

Students and staff joined together Thursday night on campus to hold a candlelight vigil in Foster’s memory.

wdtony:
This is another article where a man was killed due to prone restraint. There was an attempt to outlaw prone restraint in Colorado but TEEN PROGRAM DIRECTORS spoke out against it and it did not become law. You can watch the video of the man dying and teen program staff defending restraint in residential programs... Previous stories to this one are listed at the bottom of the article.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/29 ... tml?mid=52

WATCH THE VIDEO EMBEDDED ON THE PAGE


Video Shows Struggling Mental Patient Die In Restraint

Prone Restraint Technique Was Banned In State Facilities After CALL7 Investigation Found It Fatal

Arthur Kane and John Ferrugia , CALL7 Investigators

POSTED: 11:17 am MDT November 3, 2011
UPDATED: 1:20 pm MST November 7, 2011

PUEBLO, Colo. -- CALL7 Investigators obtained an internal video showing Pueblo state hospital officials forcing a patient on to a table, strapping him down as he struggles and suffocates, and then taking several minutes to unstrap him and attempt to provide medical care.

The video shows Troy Geske recoiling as attendants bring him into the isolation room. After Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo staff strap him down, Geske tries to lift himself to breath but eventually collapses and dies.

A worker notices he’s not moving, rushes in, and attempts to rouse him. The staff attempts to revive Geske with oxygen, but find the emergency tank empty. Attendants didn’t begin CPR until it was too late, the video shows.


The state went to court to try to keep the video, which graphically shows the danger of prone restraint, away from the family and public.

The Colorado Department of Human Services, which runs CMHIP, banned the restraint after a CALL7 Investigation into Geske’s death.

“When I watched my son being put face down, leaned on by four huge men not allowing any part of his body to move... his head or anything, all I thought of was inhumane,” said Troy’s mother Linda Stephens. “One pressing his face to the table. One had his elbow in his back which would further deplete the lungs of his air. I can't imagine the fright, being so scared, what my son went through.”

CALL7 Investigator John Ferrugia showed the video to Dr. Harlan Lubin, who works for Denver Health and covers the Denver jail. Lubin has treated violent and dangerous patients, including adolescents in the youth corrections system. He said the face-down restraint is too dangerous to use.

“I don’t think there is any reason why prone restraint should be used as opposed to other types of restraints or other interventions,” he said. “You’re just bringing on a lot of added risks when you do prone restraint.”

But legislators earlier this year disagreed when they killed a bill that would have banned prone restraint at all mental health facilities -- not just state facilities. Lawmakers heard from directors and staff of adolescent and children’s residential treatment facilities that sometimes use prone restraint on patients many times per day.

“We utilize therapeutic crisis intervention and prone restraint is what we do,” testified Rebecca Hea, executive director at the Denver Children’s Home. “I’m unbelievably anxious that a law is going to go into effect that will limit my staff’s ability to keep kids safe.”

But Troy Geske’s mother said the techniques demonstrated in the legislative hearing were not prone restraint and said people should see what it’s really like.

“I wanted to jump up and go ‘seriously... do you really think that is a prone restraint?’” she said. “It's not! Prone restraint is violent.”

A grand jury found the state hospital responsible for Geske’s death but did not find criminal wrong doing.
Lubin said the procedure should not be used.

“Just inherent in the prone restraint is the risk that the person will have difficulty with breathing and unfortunately, in this case, die,” Lubin said.

CDHS is meeting with contractors, including those at youth residential treatment facilities, to explore new techniques that will eventually replace prone restraint. And there is an audit underway of deaths at the state hospital after a series of CALL7 investigations showed problems and mistakes at the hospital that led to the unnecessary deaths of patients.

Stephens says it is essential people see the videotape of the restraint that killed her son and hopes the video will prompt lawmakers to act.

“If I can watch a video of how my son died, then dammit you can watch one to hopefully speak out and help this from happening again,” she said. "I imagine my son (gasping for air) trying to breathe. For just a short period, (his) brain has to know I'm going to die, I can't breathe.

“I don't want him to die in vain,” she said. “And the only way we can do that is to keep it out there, to let people know what happened -- the reality of the prone restraint.”

Previous Stories: (Links are on web-page)

September 27, 2011: Behind The Walls Of State Mental Hospital
August 26, 2011: Pueblo State Hospital May Eliminate Internal Police Force
August 9, 2011: 4 Workers Suspended After Patient Injured
July 19, 2011: CALL7 Investigation Questions State Hospital Police Policy, Contract
June 28, 2011: State Human Services Moves To Ban Prone Restraint
May 9, 2011: No Discipline For 5 Deputies Involved In Jail Death
May 2, 2011: Mother: State Hospital System 'Killed My Son'
May 2, 2011: Grand Jury: 'Systematic Failure' In State Hospital Patient Death
March 22, 2011: Prone Restraint Ban Fails In Committee
March 21, 2011: New State Human Services Director Promises Change
March 18, 2011: Legislature To Decide Whether To Ban Prone Restraint
February 28, 2011: Grand Jury Looking Into Williams' Crash Delayed
February 4, 2011: State Mental Hospital Head Steps Down
February 2, 2011: Prone Restraint Bill Moving Forward
December 23, 2010: 7NEWS Airs Investigative Documentary Of State Hospital
November 16, 2010: State Hospital Review Recommends Less Restraint
November 16, 2010: State Banned Fatal Restraint Before Recent Death
September 24, 2010: Pueblo Patient Suffocated In Restraint, M.E. Rules

wdtony:
YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiuDCJxLYyY

Anonymous:
One of the people who proposed HR911 is Carolyn Maloney, a Queens congresswoman

I've been e-mailing and called her. She will be back in her office on Monday if someone wants to bug her up

http://maloney.house.gov/

 Offices

Washington, DC Office

2332 Rayburn HOB

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: (202) 225-7944

Fax: (202) 225-4709

Manhattan District Office

1651 3rd Avenue, Suite 311

 New York, NY 10128-3679

Phone: 212-860-0606

Fax: 212-860-0704

Queens District Office

21-77 31 Street

Astoria, NY 11105

Phone: 718-932-1804

Fax: 718-932-1805

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page