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7/19/2005
Six Georgia counselors charged in teen's
death
CLEVELAND, Ga. (AP) — Six counselors at a
state-run wilderness camp for troubled boys were charged with murder
in the death of a 13-year-old boy with asthma who was restrained for
more than an hour.
A White County grand jury handed up the charges
of felony murder, child cruelty and involuntary manslaughter Monday.
"This is all based on the criminal negligence
or reckless conduct of these individuals," said White County
District Attorney Stan Gunter. "It was due to the restraint, and how
they applied it, that has led to these charges."
Travis Parker died April 21, a day after he was
held face down by counselors at the Appalachian Wilderness Camp in
Cleveland, in the North Georgia mountains. The boy had angrily
confronted one of the counselors for withholding food from him as
punishment.
Parker had asthma and was denied his inhaler
during the restraint. A medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.
An attorney for counselor Mathew Desing said
the counselors restrained the boy as they had been taught.
"They were doing what they were trained to do,"
attorney Abbi Guest said. "This is clearly not a case of counselors
gone awry." Desing "cared very much for the children he worked with,
and he cared very much for the job of helping those children," she
said.
But Gwen Skinner, an official at the Georgia
Department of Human Resources, which oversees the camp, said the
counselors were not following agency rules or procedures.
"We do not train staff to do face-down
restraints," she said.
The other five counselors who were indicted
were Ryan Chapman, Paul Binford, Torbin Vining, Johnny Harris and
Phillip Elliott.
All six had resigned or been fired after the
boy's death.
Travis had been sent to the camp in February.
He was on probation after hitting his grandmother, who raised him,
and threatening her with a knife.
Since his death, the state has retrained staff
on the use of restraints and is reviewing its policies on when
restraints may be used, officials said.
Authorities had said that counselors did not
give him the inhaler because an emergency medical technician saw no
indications such as wheezing that he was having an asthma attack and
because the boy had a history of asking for his inhaler when he was
being restrained.
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