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Security Remains Intact After Boys Home Riot
April 11, 2005
LUCEDALE, Miss. - A private security company remained
at a home for troubled boys on Monday after a weekend disturbance
that left at least one dormitory damaged and several youth with
injuries.
The disturbance began Friday at Eagle Point Christian
Academy in Lucedale, a private boarding school for delinquent boys.
The facility, earlier known as Bethel Boys Home, has a long history
of problems, operates under a Chancery Court decree and is
monitored.
George County Sheriff Garry Welford said four cadets
ran away and his deputies returned three of them to the academy on
Sunday. One youth was still at large Monday, authorities said.
School officials on Saturday brought in Mississippi
Security Police, a private company that has experience dealing with
juveniles. Welford said he kept two of his deputies on the grounds
until Sunday morning.
"My role is to try to maintain some kind of peace and
order and keep the community around Bethel safe if they break out,"
Welford said. "Any riot, we have to help suppress it, which we did
Friday night. The staff helped us."
He said the school has 122 cadets from ages 12 to 17.
He had to enlist a dozen George County deputies over the weekend to
deal with the situation that began at 11 p.m. Friday. By 3:30 a.m.
Saturday, all but the missing cadet were accounted for, he said.
Welford said he notified the state Department of
Human Services, even though there were no allegations of abuse. He
said he requested assistance to move the boys but got no response,
partly because the school is a private business and the issue is
with juveniles.
"The kids really don't like it down there," he said.
Home officials were not immediately available for
comment.
A total of nine boys were sent to the Forrest County
Juvenile Detention Center for being uncooperative with deputies _
six Friday night and three more Saturday. Six cadets were treated
and released and one was hospitalized after the riot.
"It was definitely a riot," Welford said. "They were
breaking things, tearing things up. They broke the windows out of
one dorm upstairs. They pretty well trashed it."
He said cadets stopped up the toilets in the upstairs
area of the home and flooded the downstairs and destroyed security
cameras.
Welford said he was told by students that the
incident started from a rumor that there would be a state inspection
of the school. Welford said some students decided to make the school
look as bad as they could.
He said the youths held in Forrest County would be
returned to George County for an appearance in juvenile court.
Bethel Boys Academy has a history of abuse
allegations and state investigations dating to 1988, when 72
children were removed by state welfare officials. In 1990, a judge
closed the school, then owned by Herman Fountain Sr. In 1994,
Fountain reopened it as Bethel Boys Academy.
Early this year, the school changed its name to Eagle
Point Christian Academy. John Fountain said the name change is an
effort to disassociate the school from the past allegations.
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