Dec 20, 2007 3:15 pm US/Eastern
Staff Fired After Prank Call Shock Treatments
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Staff members at a group home made multiple mistakes when
they followed a prank caller's direction to give dozens of electrical shocks to
two emotionally disturbed teenagers, according to a report by a state agency
that investigated the incident.
The report by the Massachusetts Department of Early
Education and Care said six staffers at a Stoughton
residence run by the Canton-based Judge
Rotenberg Education
Center had ample reason
to doubt the orders to administer the shocks, but did nothing to stop it.
The six staff members and video surveillance worker on
duty that night have been fired, Ernest Corrigan, the school's spokesman, said
Thursday.
Initial investigations showed that a former student at the Judge Rotenberg
Education Center
allegedly called in orders for electric shock treatments on Aug. 26 and
officials at the school self-reported the prank call and unnecessary treatments
the day after they occurred, Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the state
Department of Early Education and Care, said Monday.
After the call, the teens, ages 16 and 19, were awakened in the middle of
the night and given the shock treatments, at times while their legs and arms
were bound. One teen received 77 shocks and the other received 29. One boy was
treated for two first-degree burns.
The caller posed as a
supervisor and said he was ordering the punishments because the teens had
misbehaved earlier in the evening. But none of the staffers had witnessed any
problems, and other boys said the two teens had done nothing wrong. One boy
suggested the call was a hoax.
The report says the caller was a former resident of the center
with intimate knowledge of the staff, residents and layout of the Stoughton home. No motive
was given and the caller's identity wasn't disclosed. Police are looking into
filing criminal charges.
Five of the six staffers had worked a double or triple
shift and most had been on the job less than three months. The staffers were
described as concerned and reluctant about the orders, but failed to verify
them with the central office or check treatment plans to make sure the teens
could receive that level of shock therapy, the report said. Staffers also
didn't know who the shift supervisor was that night.
Staff members realized their mistake after someone finally
called the central office.
One reason staffers might not have been suspicious of the
phone call is that the Rotenberg
Center uses surveillance
cameras in its group homes to monitor residents and staff, and a central office
employee is allowed to initiate discipline by phone.
"We found that there were breaches of internal control procedures that
happened in this particular case," Campbell
said. "We take this very seriously."
Corrigan said an incident like the faulty shock treatments
after a phone call has never happened before.
"We have modified procedures to assure that an incident of this type
cannot occur ever again," Corrigan said.
As a result of the investigation, the center has expanded
staff training, implemented new telephone verification procedures, added
oversight at group homes and eliminated delayed punishment.
Nancy Alterio, executive director of the state's Disabled
Persons Protection Committee, confirmed that her agency is investigating a
complaint that a third victim -- an adult -- at the a residential facility in
Stoughton run by the Rotenberg center also received unnecessary shock
treatments after the phone call.
"It was a perfect storm of things that went wrong
that night," he said.
The complaints have also been referred to the state police and the Norfolk
District Attorney's Office, Alterio said.
The school treats people with a wide variety of behavior problems, including
autistic-like students who have aggressive, self-injurious or destructive
behaviors and high-functioning students with psychiatric or emotional problems,
according to a description posted on its web site.
"The so-called prank call ... was an isolated, unprecedented incident
that occurred more than three months ago," Corrigan said in a statement
released Monday. "We immediately reported it to the appropriate state
agencies and the local police."
The state Department of Early Education and Care said it investigated a
complaint about two youths -- ages 16 and 19 -- who were given unnecessary
shock treatments on Aug. 26 after someone claiming to be on the staff of Dr.
Matthew Israel -- the psychologist who founded the school -- called facility
and ordered the treatments.
Two state legislators called on Gov. Deval Patrick to take quick action to
put strict regulations in place for the use of shock therapy.
"In a word, this incident is horrifying and it would be immoral for the
Legislature and the executive branch not to react strongly and swiftly,"
said Sen. Brian A. Joyce, who has previously sponsored legislation to ban
electric shock therapy.
Kenneth Mollins, a New York attorney who
has filed several lawsuits against the Rotenberg center alleging the
mistreatment of children at the Canton-based school, sent a letter Monday to
Patrick and various state agencies, calling on the state to investigate the
complaints, which were first reported by The Examiner newspaper, of Washington.
"The governor needs to take a look and see what's happening here. There
is nobody overseeing the store. If somebody can just call and ask that somebody
be shocked, there is a significant problem," Mollins said.
The center, believed to be the only school in the nation that uses a
two-second skin-shock punishment to change destructive behavior, is no stranger
to controversy. It has survived two attempts by the state to close it amid
allegations that its unorthodox methods amount to abuse.
Massachusetts
was required to pay the center $580,000 after it unsuccessfully sought to close
the school following the 1985 death of a 22-year-old student who suffered a
seizure while restrained and forced to listen to static noise.
More recently an investigation was ordered to determine if a shock device
malfunctioned, causing burns to one student. The center also agreed to stop
referring to staff members as psychologists if they have not been licensed with
the state.
On Monday, the center defended its use of the intensive treatment methods,
saying they are used in a minority of cases as part of overall therapy for
"very deeply emotionally disturbed young adults."
The procedures are applied "only after obtaining prior parental,
medical, psychiatric, human rights, peer review and individual approval from a
Massachusetts Probate Court," Corrigan said.
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(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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