OFFICIAL RECORDINGS OF GUARDS AND TEENS WERE HEAVILY EDITED; 'WE WANT
TO KNOW WHY'

Maryland State Police looking into assaults by guards against teens at
three state boot camps are being hindered in their investigation
because subpoenaed videotapes of activities at the facilities were
heavily edited to exclude any violence against the
delinquents.

The tapes cover at least seven inductions -- the first day the teens
arrive at the camps and the day guards tend to be most violent.

Included in the tapes is a Nov. 29 induction at the Savage Leadership
Challenge, one of the three camps in Garrett County. During that
induction, guards fractured the arm of a 16-year-old boy, according to
medical records and internal reports from the state Department of
Juvenile Justice.

But any signs of that incident went unrecorded. The videotape includes
scenes of that induction both before and after the reports indicate
the boy's wrist was fractured.

"That's certainly something we'd want an explanation for," said Maj.
Thomas Bowers, a commander with the state police.

"If there are chunks missing, we want to know why."

The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation of the guards' role in
the Nov. 29 injury to 16-year-old Gary Johnson Jr. of Easton.

The tapes were subpoenaed as part of an investigation being conducted
by several agencies, including the state police. Investigators are
interviewing more than 500 former "cadets" from the camps to see
whether criminal charges should be filed against guards.

The state police have already concluded that guards were unnecessarily
violent with the delinquents.

In October, before the current investigation, they charged one guard
with two counts of child abuse and two counts of second-degree assault.

The guard, Kenneth Craddock, 29, of Cumberland, is accused of choking
two teens at Savage earlier that month.

No Criminal Charges

"With one of the kids, he left bruises on each side of his throat,"
said J. D. Murphy, a detective with the Garrett County Sheriff's Department.

No criminal charges have been filed in the state police investigation
that began last week in response to a series of articles in The Sun,
detailing guards' assaulting a group of cadets at Savage.

Bowers, the state police commander, said investigators are
scrutinizing hundreds of records from the juvenile justice agency and
are not yet in a position to decide about criminal charges.

He said that the videotapes were important to the investigation but
that there are written records describing abuses. Investigators, he
said, are also gathering accounts from employees at the camps.

Police subpoenaed the tapes last week. They were obtained by The Sun
under state freedom of information laws.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening and Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend
ordered the military-style programs suspended last week.

National Guard Takes Over

The National Guard has taken over the camps, overseeing about 70
delinquents who remain at two of the camps. The third was closed.

On Wednesday, the governor ousted Gilberto de Jesus, secretary of the
Department of Juvenile Justice, and four of his aides. Fourteen guards
have been placed on administrative leave.

Bob Kannenberg, a spokesman for the juvenile justice agency, said the
tapes were created by the camps and were handed over to investigators
as they were received.

They were not edited at the agency's headquarters, but it appears from
camera angles and from a time counter on the tapes that the camera was
turned off during extended periods of the inductions, he said.

"We turned over everything we got from the camps," he said.

Jack Nadol, the former undersecretary for the department, said he
ordered the tapes made after Townsend heard in August that a reporter
was asking questions about violence at the camps, particularly during
inductions, and ordered any abuses stopped.

He said camp employees made the tapes, and he could not explain why
the camera was repeatedly turned off during the inductions.

One of the tapes includes four inductions, which last all day but are
most intense for about two hours. The videos of those inductions last
only a combined total of about 30 minutes.

A Sun reporter and photographer witnessed an induction in October 1998
and, as reported in last week's series, the teens were thrown from the
van, then slammed -- shackled and handcuffed -- to the ground by
guards dressed in fatigues. Some of the teens were slapped and punched
while being yelled at by the guards.

Key Portions Are Missing

But key portions of the inductions are missing from the videotapes.
For example, in only three cases are the delinquents shown getting out
of the vans.

Also, only one of the inductions includes a cue that guards learn in
training that tells them to rush the teens for a second time. At the
induction witnessed by The Sun, that was a cue for a second round of
violence.

At the Nov. 29 induction where the teen's wrist was fractured, a guard
wearing brown pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, a black hat and
combat boots warns the teens.

"If you get out of control, you will be brought back into control by a
staff member," he tells them. As he starts to deliver the previously
scripted cue for the other guards to rush the teens a second time, the
camera is turned off.

When the tape resumes, the same guard says, "Things will happen. We'll
drive on."

In some of the tapes, guards pulled teens out of camera range. In
other cases, the camera captured a glimpse of guards pushing
delinquents to the ground, but the angle of the shot was quickly
altered to put those scenes out of camera range.

On the videotape of a Sept. 21 induction at Backbone Leadership
Challenge, four guards are seen on top of a teen, but the camera then
quickly pans away. The quality of the audio is poor, and it could not
be heard what the teen might have said or done that led to the action.

Gary Johnson Jr., the teen with the fractured arm, said he was on the
ground when he was injured Nov. 29. He said a guard grabbed his arm
and bent it until he heard a snap.

The FBI's civil rights investigation centers on his allegations.
Federal officials said they might broaden their probe.

On one of the videotapes, there is one induction that includes scenes
of the teens getting off the vans and the cue for the guards to rush
them -- without any violence resulting.

In the background are two people from the juvenile justice agency's
inspector general's office, who were sent to watch that induction to
look for any signs of violence.