BOOT CAMP HORROR

Two boys, ages 12 and 13 years old, have come forward with horrific accounts of how they were shocked with tasers, trampled on by adults and beaten with plastic pipes at a popular annual camp aimed at curbing behavioural issues in so-called troubled children.

The boys, who are both students of Enid Bennett High School in St Catherine, claimed, too, that they witnessed soldiers, police officers and cadets inflicting similar abuse on other boys during the two-week camp, including one incident in which a student from another school suffered a broken wrist.

The Sunday Gleaner has opted not to publish their names.

The residential camps are organised each year by the National Interschool Brigade (NIB), a non-governmental group, to stage intervention measures for high school students deemed to have behavioural problems.

Approximately 200 students from several high schools attended this year’s staging held from July 15 to 29 at Holmwood Technical High School in Christiana, Manchester, at a cost of $8,500 per student, the NIB confirmed.

Mikhail Samuda, a director of NIB, said no allegation of physical abuse has been reported to the group and none was reported at the command post during the camp, “but I’m not gonna say the students are lying”.

He confirmed that during the camp, one student broke his wrist and another suffered a “sprained arm”, but said the injuries occurred on the same day “almost the same time” while they were playing around.

“They were running from each other. One of them ran and hit the wall and fell. The pressure that he fell with on his wrist broke his wrist,” Samuda explained to The Sunday Gleaner.

“Those are the two casualties that we know about.”

However, the 12-year-old told The Sunday Gleaner that he saw a student from another school fall and break his wrist after a soldier “kick weh him two foot dem”. The incident followed a verbal exchange between them, he claimed.

“Me nuh know a wha di boy say to him,” the child said.

PARAMILITARY INTERVENTION

Samuda disclosed that the camp has a paramilitary component and that a “few police and soldiers” as well as cadets are among the instructors. Others include social workers, counsellors, disciplinary intervention officers and youth development officers.

The cadets serve as squad commanders and share barracks with the students, he explained.

The NIB director said the entity will “definitely” conduct a thorough investigation “and where there is any truth to it, the persons who would have done this will face the full force of the law”.

The 13-year-old, citing one encounter, claimed that he was among a group of boys who were ordered by persons they believe were soldiers and cadets to lay on the ground and join their hands to “build a bridge”.

“Dem mek we turn upside dung. My head deh up and somebody else head deh dung and dem mek we put we hand inna the air and dem walk pan the bridge and say, ‘don’t mek we drop’,” he recounted.

“One a dem drop and some a di boys weh did build the bridge get lick with sticks.”

In another incident, he said he was among a group of boys running across the football field when the soldiers leading the exercise commanded that they get to the opposite end in two minutes.

“Dem taser me when me did a move slow fi mek me go faster,” he charged, likening the feeling of being jolted with the handheld device to “when current touch you body”.

The 12-year-old recounted another incident in which he said the boys assigned to his barracks were making loud noises late one night, drawing the attention of a group of soldiers and policemen.

According to him, they demanded to know who were making the noise, but ordered everyone out of the room before a response came.

The seventh-grade student said the police and soldiers indicated that “all a oonu a go out deh go do work”. They were each ordered to do 100 jumping jacks, he said.

“And den him tell we fi do 100 more and den him say do hundred squats and we do it. And den him say do 100 push-ups and we did a do it, but ‘cause we did tired and some a we did deh pan we belly, dem come taser we,” he claimed.

The 12-year-old said the jolt to his side felt “like when current shock me”.

“Me see when the sup’n come up pan it, you know, like lightning,” he said, describing the flash of light from the taser.

The seventh-grader said the person with the taser “always wear a mask”, but insisted that he would still be able to identify him.

The NIB director said “making bridges with your hands while lying down” is not one of the organisation’s sanctioned activities “and I don’t know which instructor would do that”.

Further, Samuda said tasers are a “no-no” for the camp and “none of my instructors carries a taser”.

“So, again, I won’t say that the students are lying, I can’t say that, but none of my instructors are authorised to carry that. They have no use for it,” he insisted.

ALLEGATIONS ‘QUITE SERIOUS’

Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison called the allegations “quite serious”, and said her office will conduct a fulsome investigation into the claims made by both boys after her office was alerted by The Sunday Gleaner.

“That’s all I can say now because they are allegations. We haven’t met with any of the boys yet so I wouldn’t want to pre-judge the matter by making any pronouncements one way or another,” she said.

The abuse allegations have not been reported to the Ministry of Education and Youth, acting Permanent Secretary Maureen Dwyer confirmed.

FEAR OF EXPULSION

Relatives of the two Enid Bennett High School students said they felt compelled to enrol them in the camp because of a letter they received that was signed by Principal Patrick Phillips and dean of discipline Paulette Gayle.

The letter noted that there was continued maladaptive behaviour by some students despite verbal warnings, one-on-one discussions, counselling, detentions and suspensions.

“We are making a last-ditch effort to mitigate their occurrence with our intervention programme. This programme will take the form of a residential camp,” read a section of the letter seen by The Sunday Gleaner, referring to the camp run by NIB.

“Failure to attend may result in your child/ward losing his/her place at the Enid Bennett High School,” it continued.

The aunt of the 13-year-old said she was fearful that he would be expelled from school. “And I was thinking that to find another school would be very hectic and challenging,” she told The Sunday Gleaner, revealing that she took custody of her nephew after the recent death of his father.

“Me cry when me see him [when the camp ended] because he was traumatised and him look malnourished. Him all a jump up out a him sleep a night time,” she said.

ABUSE WON’T CURB BEHAVIOUR ISSUES

The Enid Bennett High School principal told The Sunday Gleaner that no allegation of physical abuse was reported to him by any student and “I would be furious if such things happened and I wasn’t made aware of it”.

“It couldn’t be that we take them and abuse them in order to curb their behaviour. If we abuse them, the behaviour would be worse,” Phillips said.

He explained that the St Catherine-based school, formerly called Bog Walk High, normally holds intervention programmes for its students during the summer holidays.

But he said when the camp was offered by NIB, he seized the opportunity because it was “sanctioned by the education ministry”.

Up to late yesterday, there was no response from Dwyer to questions submitted by The Sunday Gleaner on Thursday about whether the camp required or obtained government approval.

However, the camp director said they do not need approval from the ministry.

“We are a youth organisation. If camp is being hosted, we advertise it and the agreement is between parents and the brigade. It has nothing to do with the Ministry of Education,” Samuda noted.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com