Former staffer at Florida School for Boys deposed. Says discipline was "state-approved protocol"

[madfloridian]

He said they called it Final Disciplinary Action.

The White House Boys, now men in their 50s and 60s finally got a deposition with the man they accused of the intense beating that went on in the building they dubbed "The White House" on the campus of the Florida Industrial School for Boys in Mariana, Florida.

MARIANNA | They say Troy Tidwell drew blood. They say he dragged the boys to a tiny building on the campus of the Florida School for Boys in Marianna, made them bite a pillow and hit them so hard with a leather strap that they feel it 50 years later.

They say he enjoyed it.

More than 200 former students of the state-run reform school, now in their 50s, 60s and 70s, accuse Tidwell in a class-action lawsuit of abuse. They tell of picking underwear from their lacerations and being black and blue from their thighs to their backs. For the first time since the men told their stories publicly in October, Tidwell was made to face the allegations.

Troy Tidwell admits using leather strap but says no law broken.

EDMUND D. FOUNTAIN | ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
TROY TIDWELL the 'One Armed Man' of Marianna leaves after giving a deposition on Thursday. Tidwell is accused by hundreds of men of physically abusing them as children when they were sentenced to the Florida School for Boys in the 1950s and 60s.

Tidwell was the focus of a St. Petersburg Times report called 'For Their Own Good,' which documented a history of abuse at the school, now known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Since the article was published last month, dozens more men have told similar stories of being abused by Tidwell and other school employees.

..."Bryant Middleton was sitting a few seats from Tidwell during the four hours of testimony. Middleton, sent to the school in 1959 for incorrigibility, said Tidwell wouldn't look him in the eye.

'He inflicted so much harm on me that it totally changed my life,' Middleton, 64, said after the deposition. 'I was brutally hurt, physically and emotionally. For him to say he never hurt anybody, well, he hurt me.'

I hate that term Final Disciplinary Action....it has a connotation of another "final solution".

The St Petes Times has an editorial about the state's failed investigation in tomorrow's paper. And yes, it was failed. They opened no graves, they used no ground-penetrating radar. They simply went by records put together by those who committed the alleged crimes against these boys in state care.

FDLE investigation of Dozier School for Boys fails to find truth

It was a band of former residents from 50 years ago, now calling themselves "The White House Boys," who pressed Crist to act in December. More than 200 former residents have signed on to sue the state — prompting Thursday's deposition of former houseparent Troy Tidwell. A recent investigation by the St. Petersburg Times found that individually and collectively, former residents' stories strike similarly horrible and chilling themes of physical abuse and possible death.

Grown men, many of whom have struggled to build a life in the wake of Dozier, told reporters life at the North Florida school could include strap whippings in a low concrete white building that left blood on the walls, and sexual abuse in an underground "rape room." Their accounts included witnessing boys trapped inside running clothes dryers, orders to dig child-size graves and friends who disappeared after being hauled off to the "white house."

But FDLE steered clear of much of that emotional testimony — and did not interview one of the key leaders of the White House Boys group. The agency took the most literal interpretation of Crist's charge to investigate the school's unmarked graves. Using official records and newspaper reports, which the agency conceded were incomplete and deteriorated, investigators said it appears that 31 people are buried there, all 31 appear accounted for in written records and no deaths appear to be suspicious.

But the agency didn't exhume any bodies nor utilize ground-penetrating radar to discern if more could be buried there. And while the agency acknowledges the written records made it impossible to ascertain the location of burial sites, it appears little weight was given to the fact that the official records would have been maintained by the alleged torturers themselves. The result is a report that reads more like a possible defense argument for the state than an investigation that considered alternative outcomes.

These over 200 damaged men are still waiting for justice.

They have closed the White House and sealed it.



Here is the plaque that sealed the building.

THE WHITE HOUSE PLAQUE

"In memory of the children who passed these doors, we acknowledge
their tribulations and offer our hope that they have found some
measure of peace.

May this building stand as a reminder of the need to remain vigilant
in protecting our children as we help them to seek a brighter future.

Moreover, we offer the reassurance that we are dedicated to serving
and protecting the youth who enter this campus, and helping them
to transform their lives.”

The Whitehouse
Officially Sealed
by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice
October 21, 2008

This investigation was defined not by what the investigators did....but what they didn't do.

[geckosfeet]

1. Here is more "state approved protocol" - get ready to spend the rest of your life behind bars.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I was ready to give FL the benefit of the doubt

until I saw what a shoddy investigation they did. It reeks of cover up.

[madfloridian]

3. Daughter of the school's doctor speaks out. It is a shocking read.

She seems to have lived hearing about prison punishments and thus is fairly accepting. That is what makes this article so awful...its acceptance of barbaric practices.

Daughter of Dozier’s Doctor Wexler Speaks Out

My father was Dr. Isadore Wexler, the physician at FSB from 1960 to 1970. My mother, Rella Wexler, was the
executive secretary for the school’s superintendent (first, Arthur Dozier, then David Walters). Our family lived on the
grounds during the ten-year time period. As a high school student, I regularly assisted my father in the campus
clinic and his office.

My father’s specialty was penal institution medicine. His career included the Kentucky Institute for the Criminally
Insane, Sing Sing Prison (New York), and Norfolk State Prison (a maximum security facility in Massachusetts). Over
the years, he spoke regularly and graphically about what he did—and saw—in these settings. I grew up hearing
about everything from his treatment of rat-bitten prisoners chained in a dungeon to his official duty of viewing and
verifying deaths by electric chair.

Let's stop there at the "rat-bitten prisoners chained in a dungeon" whom he saw as part of his official duties. They were in the USA? Since when did we do that, let a doctor see it.

During my father’s tenure at FSB, I became aware that “strappings” (this is what it was called in the 1960s)
occurred, although I’m not sure who told me. My sister and I were told to stay away from the “white house.”

..."In fact, shortly after my father came to the school, he had a confrontation with Superintendent Dozier about the
boys going shoeless on the work crews. He treated so many foot injuries that he insisted the boys be required to
wear shoes or boots. Mr. Dozier told my father that would ruin the “beloved image of the barefoot boy in the South.”
If this type of injury was sufficient to annoy a physician—even one who had seen much worse—I cannot imagine
him remaining silent about ongoing brutal beatings during the time he cared for the 800 boys.

The men who now insist they were so badly abused at the school certainly did not have a pleasant experience
there. I cannot comment on their motives for waiting this length of time before coming forward. However, they
deserve the right to see their allegations thoroughly investigated.

They waited so long to come forward because they were in emotional pain. It took years for them to get organized.

[murielm99]

4. I'm sure they could go over and over it in their own minds,

and have countless nightmares about it. But when asked to talk about it, their words would have stuck in their throats. It would have been too hard to speak of the abuse.

I am glad they are getting together, supporting each other and speaking out.

You know this sort of thing has not stopped. The for profit prisons are still abusing and killing children.

[madfloridian]

5. Too hard to speak about,...you are right.

Look at what happened to Martin Anderson in boot camp in North Florida? 8 guards pummeled him and a nurse stood by.

[mia]

6. One of "the boys" has been posting about this for many years.

I used to post stories on a website called PearlSoup and read about the beatings that Roger Kaiser and the other boys suffered through at that orphanage. He goes under the name of RDK and has over 400 stories (pearls). Most of them are in some way related to his life at that home for boys. He seems to be a wonderful human being and he's a good writer.
He has a petition that can be signed at this website.

Thank you for posting about this issue, madfloridian.

[madfloridian]

7. I think he is the one who wrote a book about it.

I think his name is spelled Kiser.

Here is video in which he is interviewed by CBS.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/3966

It is enough to make you cry.

[mia]

12. Yes, he's the same Roger.

I think that his experiences gave him an extraordinary amount of knowledge about the suffering of others. I often got teary when I was reading his "pearls", but looked forward to reading more about his views on other subjects as he had a great deal of empathy.

[madfloridian]

8. BTW in the video that Kiser looks like a dignified guy. Feeling pain, though.

:hi:

Checking out your links.

Oh, and Kiser's homepage looks interesting. I did not realize he had written so many books. Ed Asner turned one of his books into a short film called The Bully.

http://www.geocities.com/trampolineone/

[sasquatch]

9. What is wrong with Florida?

[TheMadMonk]

10. WTF is wrong with Amurika?

Florida is just one of the more visible metastais of the cancer which riddles the nation.

[Canuckistanian]

11. Good, they got Tidwell, the one-armed sadist

Robert Straley, 64, a Clearwater man who sells novelties at city events and music festivals throughout the South, still recalls vividly what happened to him in the white stucco cracker house in March 1963.

The instrument of his torment was a long leather strap -- like the kind used in old-fashioned barber shops, except that part of it was made of sheet metal.

''If I had them people in front of me, I'd have to ask them if they realize how many lives they destroyed,'' Straley said. ``They beat you. They put the rage in you.''

''When you inflict that much pain and brutality on a child, they're traumatized for life,'' he said. ``Period.''

~snip

GRIM RITUAL

The boys were told to lie on their bellies and grip the metal railing at the head of a bunk bed. The mattress was covered with blood and body fluids. The pillow smelled like body odor, and was flecked with tiny pieces of human tongues and lips from when boys bit themselves, said Richard Colon, 65, a Hialeah boy who was sent to the school on May 17, 1957, for stealing cars. He now lives in Baltimore.

The strap was kept under the pillow. ''It was attached to a wooden handle,'' said Straley, 64. ``These guys really knew how to use it, and they prided themselves on that fact. They could bring blood with one blow.''

The boys would be told, they now say, that the whipping would stop if they squirmed or screamed or tried to jump off the cot, and when it resumed, it would start all over from the beginning. The boys never knew how many licks they were getting until it was over.

''I think the reason they didn't want you to scream was because it got to them,'' said O'McCarthy.

http://www.caica.org/FLORIDA_Reform_school_severe_beatings_rapes_10-19-08.htm
COALITION AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE

[madfloridian]

13. Also I just noticed I forgot to put their website link.

http://whitehouseboys.com/

There are many powerful links and articles there.

[Wednesdays]

14. K&R

:kick:

[madfloridian]

15. FSB timeline and history

http://www.thewhitehouseboysonline.com/FSB-TIMELINE.HTML

[GAllenNH]

16. Re: Final Disciplinary Action

'I hate that term Final Disciplinary Action....it has a connotation of another "final solution".'

Actually, I'm pretty sure that Tidwell misremembers (as Dubya said). I'm pretty sure the term was actually "Maximum Disciplinary Action," and pertained to detention (solitary confinement) as well.