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Free Justin!
Despite well-documented injustice, a Pembroke Pines boy remains in
jail
May 3, 2007
By Joanna Green
 On
February 11, shortly before 6:00 p.m., a heavy-set African-American
man clad in a Department of Juvenile Justice-issue black and gray
uniform wandered through a near-deserted common room at the Arthur
G. Dozier School for Boys in the Florida panhandle.
The bespectacled guard, identified
by DJJ as 23-year-old Alvin Speights, shuffled past a bolted-down
steel table one of three then stopped. Before him stood a
scrawny, five-foot-eight-inch blond youth. The boy was an
eighteen-year-old former Pembroke Pines resident named Justin
Caldwell.
Without warning the guard lunged at
Justin, grabbed him by the throat, kicked his legs out from under
him, and dropped the boy onto his back. After calling over a second
guard whom DJJ officials declined to name Speights flipped
Justin onto his stomach and straddled him.
Three security cameras at the
residential facility in Marianna, 66 miles northwest of Tallahassee,
captured the incident without sound. Off-camera, says Justin's
father, Mark Caldwell, who spoke with his son shortly after the
incident, the guards repeatedly bashed the boy's forehead on the
concrete floor. Then they pulled him to his feet, and he collapsed
head-first onto one of the steel tables. "Justin told them he felt
dizzy," Mark Caldwell says. "He passed out on his feet."
The guards then dragged the
teenager's limp body, his head gushing blood, to the center of the
room, where they left him for more than 30 minutes.
On April 13, DJJ Secretary Walt
McNeil announced that Speights and the school's acting
superintendent, John Tallon, had been fired for violating department
policy. An internal investigation into the incident revealed no
evidence Justin provoked the guard. McNeil also told reporters that
"systematic operational problems" at the facility spanned "the chain
of command from top to bottom." DJJ even temporarily halted school
admissions. A probe is now underway to determine if Speights will
face criminal charges.
Justin's case marks the first
announcement of abuse at a Florida DJJ facility since Gov. Charlie
Christ appointed McNeil this past January. It has been a serious
test for the former Tallahassee police chief, who took over the
department after the fatal beating of fourteen-year-old Martin Lee
Anderson at a Bay County juvenile boot camp. Eight employees of the
boot camp have been charged with aggravated manslaughter and the
place has been closed.
Dozier may be worse. Records show
between January 2004 and March 2007 the Department of Children and
Families, the government agency that logs calls made to the Marianna
school's incident telephone hotline, received 133 complaints. Of
those, DCF verified five, according to DCF spokesperson Al
Zimmerman. All occurred in 2006. Among them:
On January 23 a boy of unknown age
alleged twenty-year-old staffer Andrew Menchion assaulted him.
Doctors at Jackson County Hospital confirmed the child suffered a
nasal fracture and displacement. Menchion, who said the boy was
combative and hit his nose, was "removed from client contact." The
case was assigned to the DJJ's Inspector General's office, and
Melchion was terminated on February 10.
On March 9, a boy whose age was
not divulged in the Intensive Supervision Program (ISP), a form of
solitary confinement, alleged 23-year-old staffer Kendrick White
choked and hit him during an argument. Documents reveal the boy "had
scratches on his chest and received first aid treatment." White was
fired on March 10.
On July 5, a seventeen-year-old
diabetic boy alleged guard William Page left him lying on the floor
of a television room while he was suffering from low blood sugar
levels. The boy called for help, but didn't receive any for about
twenty minutes. DJJ officials filed a medical neglect report and
fired Page on August 2.
On August 3, school medical staff
examined a sixteen-year-old boy with "bruises all over [his] face
and arms." He also suffered "a blackened eye, a bruised lip, a big
bruise on his forehead, and scratches on his neck, shoulder, and
arms." The incident, documents show, was not caught on videotape,
and the youth "refused to give any details."
On August 29 DJJ received an
anonymous complaint alleging 29-year-old Sheretha Paramore, a
teacher's aid, was having sex with a fifteen-year-old student. On
November 17, police arrested Paramore; her employer, the Washington
school district, placed her on paid leave. She awaits trial.
Justin's case, though, is the one
that finally caused the school's superintendent to lose his job ...
the boy was sentenced to a twelve- to fifteen-month stint at the
Elaine Gordon Treatment Center, a DJJ facility in Pembroke Pines.
Quarterly reviews showed Justin had
"low self-esteem and depressive thinking" and was "easily bored,
stressed, and frustrated." A negative review, behavioral problems,
or an unwillingness to participate in activities earned him more
time. "They kept sending me all these papers saying his release date
was set back," Caldwell scoffs, "saying he hadn't shown enough
progress. It's ridiculous and I kept telling them, 'I want my son
home.'"
When the Pembroke Pines school
closed in 2005, Justin was transferred to Dozier. That facility
which resembles a maximum-security prison with electronic doors at
every turn and razor wire surrounding the fences was created in
1900, and today houses approximately 162 juvenile offenders ranging
from fourteen to 21 years old. An estimated 200 employees work
there.
This past February 2, Justin
celebrated his eighteenth birthday, his fifth behind bars. A few
days later, he claims, an unnamed staff member held him by the back
of his shirt and pushed him into a metal pole. His head was split
open and doctors at a Jackson County Emergency Room closed the gash
by placing metal staples in his forehead. "Staff said he fell,"
Caldwell barks.
"Since he's been at Dozier, he said
he's made at least 25 calls to the complaint line," says Caldwell's
attorney, Rick Reno. "Twice they were investigated. One time he was
literally laughed at; the other time nothing was done."
On February 11, DJJ records show
some twelve hours before Speights allegedly beat Justin unconscious
the teenager was in a crowded dining hall where a staffer named
James Wooden was distributing utensils. In a complaint filed a day
later, Wooden states Justin elbowed and head-butted him without
provocation. Fearing a riot, Wooden alleged he and two other
staffers then restrained the boy until he calmed down.
DJJ investigators concluded Justin
had committed battery on a staff member. Two days after the
videotaped incident, Marianna police arrested the teenager and
charged him with battery on a detention staff member a
third-degree felony. Police then transported him to Jackson County
Correctional Institution. His trial is set for June 19. If he is
found guilty he could face up to five years in prison.
But it didn't end there.
Investigators also spoke with an unnamed juvenile at the facility
who said: "[Justin] accidentally bumped into Wooden then Wooden
slapped [Justin] in the head where his staples were Wooden then
slammed [him] on the floor slamming his head into the floor once
Wooden got up [he] went back to [Justin] and kicked him several
times on the ground."
It's unclear whether this incident
had any effect on McNeil's decision to fire Dozier's director. In
any case, Justin remains in custody. "He's in adult jail on false
charges," Mark Caldwell rants. "They did it on purpose to retaliate
against my son for speaking out against them and all the stuff that
goes on in there. I want him home, now!"
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