Texas ‘fight club’ videos released
May 12th, 2009From ABC News (with Nightline video):
UPDATE: See unofficial transcript of Nightline report.
Recently released videos show residents of a Corpus Christi state institution for people with intellectual disabilities being forced to fight for the amusement of night shift employees.
The disturbing videos show residents being kicked and prodded to fight while employees laugh. Residents say they were told they might be beaten or sent to prison if they refused to fight.
Employees made the videos with their cellphones. A judge ordered them released to an attorney for a former resident who is suing the state.
ABC’s Brian Ross says residents were wakened after midnight and forced to engage in fights in the Corpus Christi state school almost every night for more than a year. “It’s like Michael Vick and his pit bulls, except they treated these human beings like dogs,” said Robert Hilliard, attorney for a former state school resident.
One resident is seen on the video trying to run away from his attacker and a large group of employees and reidents tracking him through the halls. When cornered, he wails and moans and tells the employees, “I will behave.”
See also:
Hutchison’s campaign criticizes Perry’s handling of state schools — Dallas Morning News Trailblazers blog
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May 13th, 2009 at 3:06 am
I watched the last minute or two of the story on Nightline; I did not mean to but pushed the wrong button on the remote. Immediately I knew what the video must be but I froze and could not escape the sight. At the very end of the program they advertised a debate — “Is torture ever acceptable?” — but of course they were talking about torture of prisoners, of terrorists.
“… A federal civil rights investigation, completed last December before the cell phone videos were discovered, found that more than 800 employees had been suspended or fired “for abusing facility residents” since 2004. … ”
So, 2004 to 2008, an average of 200 employees each year were suspended *or* fired for abusing residents. Sixteen or seventeen employees each month. Four or five each week.
Many thanks to the police officers involved.