I was hoping that someone else would write a diary on this topic so I wouldn’t have to. This is an offensive, infuriating and outrageous news story.
The videos linked within contain violent and disturbing material.
btw I don't know what that link is under the poll, but don't click it.
At a state school for mentally handicapped adults in Corpus Christie TX, staff members forced students to battle one another in "Fight Club" style. The night shift can be heard laughing in the background on their phone videos.
But if one of them had not lost his phone, the Fight Clubs would still be going on. Someone found it and gave it to an officer working security at a hospital. The officer looked at several of the videos and gave the phone to the police's forensic unit for analysis.
Twenty videos were found on the phone, with dates going back about a year. All the videos featured the school's "clients," who are severely mentally handicapped.
In each Fight Club battle, the staff sets up the match and eggs on the victims. The punches aren't thrown lightly and the patients frequently walk away with injuries.
Corpus Christi Police Capt. Tim Wilson said:
They are being goaded into it. There's a lot of voices on there from workers ... saying, "Look at that, ha ha" ... laughing, stuff like that.
Seven school employees face criminal charges for abusing patients under their supervision; they have been placed on paid leave and are barred from coming onto the campus. State officials are awaiting the outcome of the investigation to determine whether they should take further action. "Those involved are likely to face charges of injury of a disabled person, which can range up to a third-class felony, depending on the extent of a person's involvement," said Wilson.
The school's workers "[were] charged with the care and custody of these clients, and they are exploiting [them]."
The videos were released even though the Texas Attorney General's office didn’t want them to be claiming they would be injurious to the students, but the judge hearing the case said that what's done can’t be undone. He then asked rhetorically,
Wouldn't it be to the benefit of all of the children and all of the disabled children in the United States that are in facilities similar to this, for those facilities to say "My God, what is happening in these places?"
Local Attorney Bob Hilliard added that at least one of those in the videos wants it shown. "I was actually contacted by one of the gentleman's families who were on the tape, and he wants it out there. He wants the story out."
Hilliard also questioned whether the underlying need for change at the State School would have been so apparent to state lawmakers and the public if the videos had remained unseen. And there are other videos that Hilliard has not yet obtained.
The story would have gone away. If these tapes hadn't gone out, and it would have only been a printed story about the issue, the story would have died on the vine. Nothing is stronger than videotape. A picture speaks a thousand words. Nothing's stronger than what you see.
That's just raw brutality and that's human nature at its worst.
Since the Fight Club came to light, the Department of Aging and Disability Services has installed video cameras and hired security officers.
Sources for this diary are CNN and the local NBC affiliate, which links to four of the videos.
The videos contain violent and disturbing material.
If one video is enough (or too much), youtube has this one, and it seems more are being added: