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Missouri boot camp part of national
investigation
October 3, 2007
By Steve Rock
The Kansas City Star A Missouri
boot camp where a student died nearly three years ago is part of a
federal investigation into the nation’s facilities for troubled
teens.
Three former employees of Thayer
Learning Center in Kidder, Mo., told The Kansas City Star this week
that government investigators told them Thayer was a key focus of
that investigation.
Greg Spies, a Kansas City attorney
for Thayer, said Thayer officials have “fully cooperated” with
investigators for the U.S. Government Accountability Office who
recently visited the facility and interviewed students.
The GAO, the investigative arm of
Congress, is conducting the nationwide investigation into
residential treatment programs for children at the behest of U.S.
Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat. A hearing is scheduled
for Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C., before the House Education and
Labor Committee, of which Miller is the chairman.
Ultimately, Miller’s office hopes
to convince Congress that boot camp-type facilities should be more
stringently regulated.
Thayer — which is exempt from state
oversight under Missouri law — houses more than 100 troubled teens
about 50 miles north of Kansas City. It has been the subject of
numerous child abuse allegations, most of which came to light after
the November 2004 death of student Roberto Reyes.
Roberto, 15, died after spending
less than two weeks at Thayer. His death was attributed to a spider
bite. Thayer owners John and Willa Bundy denied any wrongdoing in
connection with the fatality. They also have denied any abuse
allegations.
In February 2005, Roberto’s parents
alleged in a wrongful-death lawsuit that Roberto was subjected to
physical exertion and abuse that caused or contributed to his death.
They alleged that he would have lived had he received competent
medical care in a timely manner and that he was dragged, hit, placed
into solitary confinement and “forced to lay in his own excrement
for extended periods of time.”
In court filings, Thayer officials
denied those and other allegations. The two sides settled the case
in March 2006 for slightly more than $1 million.
A 2005 investigation by The Star
showed that, between April 2003 and October 2005, at least seven
persons had reported more than a dozen allegations of child abuse at
Thayer to the Caldwell County sheriff’s office. A state
investigative report said “it appears that those responsible for the
safety and well-being of Roberto Reyes failed to recognize his
medical distress and to provide access to appropriate medical
evaluation and/or treatment.”
Thayer officials are challenging in
court the Department of Social Services’ findings of “probable
cause” that employees at Thayer medically neglected Roberto.
No Thayer official was charged in
connection with Roberto’s death or any other child-abuse
allegations.
Tom Kiley, communications director
in Miller’s office, said the GAO began a review of boot camp-type
facilities in 2006 and expanded it in 2007.
Kiley wouldn’t confirm the specific
subjects of the investigation, but former Thayer employee Sarah
Mackey of Polo, Mo., told The Star she was interviewed in September
and that one of the GAO investigators told her Thayer was a key
subject.
Former employee Kris Trimble of
Gallatin, Mo., said the same thing, adding, “They said they wanted
to open the public’s eye about things that are going on.”
Miller first asked the GAO in
December 2005 to conduct a nationwide investigation, noting in a
letter to the agency, “This study is urgently needed because of
allegations of child abuse, human rights violations, fraud and other
violations” at facilities throughout the country.
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