From Canwest News Service:

Two women have filed a lawsuit against the province of Manitoba alleging they suffered years of sexual abuse while they were students at the Manitoba School for the Deaf. Their lawyer says the complaints are the latest in what he expects to become a class action suit with plaintiffs from nearly every Canadian province.

The women said they were repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted and harassed by staff and classmates in the 1970s and 1980s. One woman claimed she was raped by two fellow students and molested by a teacher. The other said she and other students were locked in dog cages and deprived of food and sleep.

Lawyer Tony Merchant said “hundreds” of alleged victims have come forward.

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

Pennsylvania is one of  five states in the nation without an adult-protection law that would allow county or regional agencies to investigate and record incidents of alleged abuse or neglect of adults with intellectual disabilities.

Advocates say that without such a law, those accused of abuse can continue to work in the same field. Adult-protective-services bills have been introduced in the state House and Senate, but both are stuck in committee.

The holdup is frustrating to [Stephen Suroviec, executive director of the Arc of Pennsylvania] and others who say Pennsylvania’s priorities are out of whack, considering that animal-cruelty laws seem to get passed “at the snap of a finger,” he said.

(Philadelphia Daily News photo)

From ABC News and the Houston Chronicle:

A former Corpus Christi State School employee has been sentenced to four years in prison for his role in organizing “fight clubs” between residents with developmental disabilities.

D’Angelo Riley, 23, was called a “ringleader” by prosecutors, who said he provided play-by-play commentary on cell phone video recordings of the brawls.

Eleven staff members were identified in the videos and six were charged. Riley is the second to be sentenced to jail time for causing injury to people with disabilities, and a third received a suspended sentence. Cases against the other three are pending.

Earlier posts here.

From the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland [CA] Tribune, and KGO-TV (ABC) San Francisco:

Diana Harden, who shot and killed her daughter and herself in an Oakland nursing home last weekend, sent a letter to a local television station the day before their deaths. She alleged that nursing home staff members had been abusing her daughter Yvette, calling her a “fat pig” and subjecting her to cold showers where she was washed “like a car.”

Neighbors of Harden’s said she had never complained about the nursing home, but that she was increasingly worried about her daughter’s well being and long-term care as her own health declined. She had filed two complaints with the state against the Oakland Springs Health Care Center. Yvette Harden, 43, had brain damage and limited mobility following a car accident in 1994.

The state public health department is investigating in the wake of the shootings. Over the past five years, 152 complaints have been filed against Oakland Springs, of which about half were substantiated by the state. No fines were issued.

Oakland Springs “has an unusual amount of complaints,” said Charlene Harrington, a UCSF School of Nursing professor who studies California nursing homes. “But there are very few quality homes in California. You can see how somebody would feel trapped.”

(Photo from KGO-TV)

From  ABC News, Corpus Christi Caller-Times,  AP/Dallas Morning News,and the Austin American-Statesman:

A former state employee was convicted Thursday for his part in the Texas “fight club” abuse case. Six former workers at an institution for people with intellectual disabilities have been accused of forcing residents to fight one another while employees taped the incidents on their cell phones.

Jesse Salazar, 26, was found guilty of intentionally causing injury to a disabled person, a third-degree felony. He faces up to 10 years in prison. Two others have pleaded guilty to causing injury to people with disabilities, and three more are awaiting trial.

“They planned this. They did this on a regular basis,” said Nueces County Assistant District Attorney Doug Mann in his closing argument Thursday. “This was all about their entertainment.”

See also: Commentary by Frank James on NPR news blog

The Texas case is shameful proof that despite advances in how society deals with the mentally disabled, progress [Eunice Kennedy Shriver] greatly contributed to as founder and animating force of the Special Olympics, there are still backwaters of the heart, lacking in compassion for those who are more vulnerable through no fault of their own.

Though Shriver is gone, her work is clearly far from done.

From the Education Week’s On Special Education Blog:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has asked state education chiefs to review their policies on restraints and seclusion of students, and develop or revise policies as necessary to assure children are safe.

Duncan’s letter follows congressional testimony and a report by the Government Accountability Office that documented hundreds of allegations of school-related death and abuse since 1990. The majority of the allegations involved students with disabilities. The GAO found no federal laws restricting the use of seclusion and restraints in public and private schools, and widely divergent laws at the state level.

Duncan said he was “deeply troubled” by the testimony. He offered Illinois’ policy as a model, saying it includes a “strong focus upon Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS) as well as state regulations that limit the use of seclusion and restraint under most circumstances.”

The July 31 letter asked states to respond by August 15.

From the Dallas Morning News and Austin American-Statesman:

Texas disability rights advocates are complaining that they were excluded from negotiations aimed at fixing problems at institutions for people with developmental disabilities.

They say the five-year, $112-million agreement signed this spring by the state and the U.S. Justice Department just props up a broken system, and does not do enough to move people out of institutions and into the community.

At a news conference in Austin, disability rights groups asked to be included in ongoing efforts to fix the state’s system for supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “We’re not here to impede this settlement,” said Dennis Borel, executive director for the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. “But we are interested in ensuring nobody stays in an institution who is able and wants to get out.”

Earlier posts here.