A records review by the Houston Chronicle and Texas Tribune has disclosed that workers at a center for distressed children provoked seven girls with developmental disabilities to fight as staffers laughed and cheered.

The 2008 incident, one of more than 250 recent cases of abuse and mistreatment in state residential treatment centers that were uncovered by reporters, caused bites and bruises but drew no public outcry or criminal indictments.

Reporters reviewed cases that had been documented by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services but not previously disclosed. Among the records, they found documentation that residential treatment center workers had choked and punched residents, that residents were forced to strip down to their underwear, and that staff members and a staffer’s relative had engaged in sexual acts with residents. The centers are paid by the state to provide care. All of them remain in operation today.

“Why I’m outraged is, the department hid this from us,” said state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs. “This is another example of us having to find out about systemic failures through the press, as opposed to proactively from the department.”

Not long after the incident at Daystar Residential Inc. in Manvel, Texas police stumbled on to cell phone videos of workers at a Corpus Christi institution forcing fights between male residents with intellectual disabilities. That case prompted public outrage, criminal convictions for six workers, and enhanced security measures at state institutions.

Earlier posts here.

A review of Texas state records released to the Houston Chronicle shows that 36 people who have been convicted of or charged with felonies have been working with people with intellectual disabilities in state institutions.

Disability advocates say the disclosure demonstrates that weaknesses remain in state efforts to screen employees who work with people with disabilities, despite efforts to strengthen screening in the wake of the “fight club” incidents that came to light last year. Police found that residents of the state institution in Corpus Christi were repeatedly goaded into combat for the entertainment of state employees. The incidents were discovered when police found a lost cellphone that contained videos of the fights.

From ABC News:

A former Texas state employee has pleaded guilty for his role in organizing brawls between residents of an institution for people with intellectual disabilities. Guadalupe De Larosa accepted a plea agreement, admitting to three counts of injuring a person with an intellectual disability, and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Another former employee, who has been granted immunity in exchange for her testimony, said she had seen De Larosa videotaping the fights with a cellphone.

Two other former state employees have received jail sentences for their role in the fights, and another has received a two-year suspended sentence. A sixth is awaiting trial.

In the wake of the widely publicized incident, and following a highly critical report from the U.S. Department of Justice, Texas legislators last year declined to close the state’s 13 institutions. They voted to spend $112 million to improve the institutions and tighten management practices.

Earlier posts here.

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  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 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.

Editors of the San Antonio Express-News say recently enacted reforms at the Texas institutions for people with intellectual disabilities won’t mean anything “unless the people in charge are actually held accountable.”

They say the “zero tolerance” policy requires a measure of physical harm before it holds employees accountable for abuse or neglect, and that is why at least 302 employees of state schools who had abuse or neglect cases confirmed against them remained on the job.

Considering that these are institutions for the mentally disabled, that’s a wholly inadequate measure. And given the results of a Department of Justice investigation in 2008 that uncovered widespread abuses and lapses in care that violated residents’ constitutional and statutory rights, it’s also irresponsible.

Residents of the state schools often lack the ability to speak up for themselves. They deserve decent care free from any abuse or neglect.

Zero tolerance for abuse and neglect should mean zero tolerance.