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More students testify in Hinton
case : Boy claims he was slammed against wall
August 28, 2007
By Vic Vela
Day two of the Randall Hinton trial
featured testimony from four former Royal Gorge Academy students who
testified the boarding school’s co-director was physically abusive
toward them, as well as other students.
The most compelling testimony
provided Tuesday was by a 15-year-old Riverside, Calif., boy who
detailed an alleged incident where he was put into a headlock and
slammed against a staircase wall by Hinton.
“He thrust my head into the wall,
my face hit the wall, and I fell to the ground,” said the boy.
According to the boy’s testimony,
it was his refusal to wear a pair of sandals while with Hinton as
the two were inside the school’s lobby that caught the ire of the
defendant.
“He grabbed me by my left arm and
pulled me into the staircase and said, ‘You don’t get it, do you?’”
the boy testified.
Hinton then carried the boy up a
flight of stairs by the boy’s head, his “tiptoes touching the ground
sometimes,” the boy said.
The boy was then escorted to his
room and given a pack of frozen peas to reduce the swelling on one
of his eyes — which he said was “almost swollen shut,” according to
his testimony. The boy said the defendant “made me put my face on
the ground on top of the ice and stepped on the back of my head and
pressed my face against the (frozen peas package).”
The boy said the incident occurred
on the heels of a botched escape plan, one which the boy said he
stole a kitchen knife and hid it in a drawer in his room as part of
a plan to “unscrew a window at night and run away.”
The boy said the incident occurred
sometime in April 2006, during his month-and-a-half long stay at the
school.
Meanwhile, a 17-year-old Highlands
Ranch girl on several occasions broke down in tears as she recalled
her first encounter with Hinton.
The girl said she refused to go to
bed during her first night at the school and would not leave a staff
members’ table following requests by Hinton that she do so.
“He said, ‘If you don’t move, I’m
going to help you move’,” the girl testified. “He meant what he
said.”
The girl said “it was one of the
most painful things I had to go through” when she said Hinton
“grabbed (her) right arm and whipped it around her back.”
However, defense attorney Michael
Gillick wasn’t buying the girl’s account of the alleged incident
involving his client.
The girl was indignant when Gillick
reminded her of her actions at the school. The girl said she was
“screaming and cussing out staff” and “was throwing a big fit” the
night her mother dropped her off at the boarding school.
The girl admitted she contemplated
drinking shampoo just to “get out of there.” She also hit herself in
the head with a stapler and attempted to staple one of her fingers
in an effort to make the staff think she was “crazy.” The girl also
admitted to attempting to run away from the school.
During cross-examination, the girl
had a difficult time recalling specific details of the abuse,
including not being able to recall kicking staff members as they
tried to restrain her or which staff members were present during
that time to begin with. She also did not recall “slapping her
mother” for taking her to the school, something Gillick indicated
had happened.
Two other boys testified regarding
a separate incident in which they and one other boy ran away from
the school, but were caught by Hinton and other staff members.
A 16-year-old Bloomington, Minn.,
boy testified that when he and his peers were caught near the
hogback hills following the attempted escape, the defendant made the
boys lie face down on the ground, near a red ant hill.
“They were crawling on our face and
we were blowing them off,” said the boy.
The boy said one of his peers was
demanded by Hinton to stop blowing ants off of his face.
“(Hinton) took the back of his head
and forced it down into the ground just to make him stop blowing off
the ants,” the boy testified.
After being taken back to the
school, Hinton forced the boys to lay face down on the floor inside
one of the dorm rooms. One boy, a 17-year-old from Long Beach,
Calif., said Hinton denied his request to get up after complaining
of stomach pains.
“I finally got up to my knees and
threw up twice,” said the boy. “It hurt so bad, my whole body was
numb.”
As has been the case during each of
the former students’ testimony, Gillick attempted to highlight
behavioral problems that led their parents to bring their children
to the school in the first place — such as drug use, fighting and
“histories of lying.”
Hinton faces seven counts of
third-degree assault and two counts of false imprisonment. Each
charge is a misdemeanor, though, if convicted, Hinton could face
jail time.
Prosecution testimony will continue
today, with the defense expected to begin presenting its case
shortly after.
Vic Vela can be reached at
vvela@ccdailyrecord.com.
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