ANOTHER CASUALTY AT A STATE BOOT CAMP

Gary Johnson Jr., 16, Was Sent To Boot Camp In Garrett County To Be
Taught Discipline. On His First Day There, Guards Broke His Wrist

EASTON -- Gary Johnson thought the state boot camp in Garrett County
might be good for his son. The 16-year-old had some problems, and the
state said the boot camp could help, teaching him discipline, survival
techniques, maybe even how to fix a car.

But when the teen-ager left the boot camp this week, after 10 days
there, he couldn't tie his shoes.

That's because guards at the camp fractured his wrist.

"They grabbed me by the arm and started pulling it back, and I said,
'Let go, let go,' " said Gary Johnson Jr. "I said, 'My wrist hurts,'
and they're going, 'I don't care.'

"Then I just heard a snap."

An internal report from the state Department of Juvenile Justice
confirms that Johnson's wrist was fractured Nov. 29, his first day at
the camp, by guards known as TAC officers. Johnson was not resisting
the guards, not trying to escape and not a danger to himself or
others, the report says.

"Cadet was on his knees with hands over his head when a TAC officer
attempted to get him on his feet," it says. "He grabbed his handcuffs,
and his wrist was twisted back against the cuffs." His left arm
useless, Johnson went home to Easton Wednesday and immediately entered
a hospital emergency room as a walking contradiction to claims made by
Gilberto de Jesus, the secretary of the juvenile justice agency that
runs the state's three boot camps. De Jesus says there have been no
recent assaults against cadets at the camps. "I'm satisfied that we
know of no instances where this behavior is occurring," he said in an
interview Wednesday, a few hours after his department returned Gary to
his home with a splint on his arm.

The youth underwent 90 minutes of surgery yesterday to force the
bonesin his wrist back into place. He was told that he will have on a
cast that extends from his hand to his biceps for six weeks.

Johnson learned Monday that his son's wrist had been fractured a week
earlier. He was reading a four-part series that began Sunday in The
Sun that described assaults on juveniles at the Savage Leadership
Challenge, one of three state-run boot camps in Garrett County, and
became alarmed that guards might hurt his son.

He called the camp from his St. Michaels home and demanded to speak
with him. "Then they tell me, 'Oh, by the way, we tried to call you,
your son's got a broken arm,' " the father said. "I was shocked. I
pushed myself away from my desk, got up and walked around, and I got
right back on the phone to get him out of there."

Johnson's wrist was fractured on his first day at Savage during an
exercise known as induction.

His description of the incident differed in one detail from the
juvenile justice agency's report. He said he was not wearing handcuffs
when he was injured. Guards ordered him to his knees, then one of them
went nose-to-nose with him, he said, and as he leaned back, another
guard stood behind him, holding his head forward so that he would not
fall. "Then the TAC behind me just let go, and I fell on my back,"
Gary said. "That's when they grabbed me to get me up and bent the arm.
That's when it happened."

Guards at the camp did not discover that the arm was injured until
Saturday, five days after it was broken, and Gary never complained
about it.

"I was scared," he said. "I thought they'd hurt it
more."

As the week went on, guards made him do chin-ups before he could eat
and push-ups before he could sleep. On his third day at Savage, he
wrote to his mother, Linda Johnson in Easton, that something was wrong
with his wrist, he said. The letter she received includes several
words that have been scratched out. The teen-ager said guards altered
the letter.

When a guard noticed his arm -- "It was swollen like an orange," Gary
said -- the teen was given ibuprofen. TACs took him to a clinic in
Cumberland Monday, then released him Wednesday after his father
demanded his removal and Talbot County District Judge William H.
Adkins III ordered him freed.

Gary's account of his short stay at the Savage camp essentially
mirrors events witnessed by a Sun reporter and photographer during
five months of visits to one squad of cadets at the camp beginning in
October last year.

The Sun series reported that guards routinely slam, punch and kick
juveniles sent to the camp. Internal reports in the files of the state
Department of Juvenile Justice describe dozens of assaults by guards
in addition to those witnessed and reported.

Among the reports: a juvenile "bleeding profusely" from a punch by
guards; another who had teeth knocked out by a guard's elbow; and
another who was pushed around by a circle of guards with a hood placed
over his head.

"They'd take you by the handcuffs or by the shirt and throw you to the
ground," Johnson said Wednesday. "Then they'd push your face into the
ground. "They were throwing us around like rag dolls."

Last week, he said, three guards pushed a delinquent into a restroom
in Savage's dining hall, after which pounding could be heard through
the door.

"He got out, and his face was all red, and he was crying," Johnson
said. "The next day, the left side of his face was completely swollen."

After de Jesus said Wednesday that there had been no recent assaults,
he was asked about Gary.

He said he did not view Gary's case as evidence of violent behavior
because he had only reports of the injury and could not be certain
that Gary was injured by guards at the camp and was not sure the wrist
was fractured.

"You know more about it than I do," de Jesus said.

The Sun series also documented the juvenile justice agency's failure
to ensure that juveniles participate in its programs and meet
probation requirements once released from boot camp.

In response, Gov. Parris N. Glendening and top state officials have
ordered investigations into Savage and the other camps. One
investigative team has been ordered to report to the governor by
Wednesday. Chief among its duties is to determine whether assaults
against the youths at the camps stopped after Lt. Gov. Kathleen
Kennedy Townsend ordered de Jesus to make changes. That order was
issued in August, after the newspaper first asked officials about the
assaults.

De Jesus said he did not visit the camps to ensure the changes were
made. He said he sent the undersecretary of the department, Jack
Nadol. De Jesus and Nadol have been feuding about the direction of the
department and about the secretary's ability to run it.

"Jack Nadol, as my deputy, is responsible for the boot camps," he
said.

"I went to the camps in late August or early September and had a
detailed discussion with senior staff," Nadol said yesterday. "We
discussed use of force, policy and a number of other things we had on
the table."

The state's largest child advocacy group, the Maryland Juvenile
Justice Coalition, has asked the governor to close the camps
immediately and to fire de Jesus.

About 200 juveniles a year pass through the three boot camps, sent
there by the juvenile justice agency after convictions for such crimes
as aggravated assault and distribution of crack cocaine.

Gary Johnson Jr. ended up there, his father said, because he was
kicked out of school for skipping classes. His record also includes
two assault charges.

"We all knew he needed some guidance," his father said. "He needed a
kick, but not that kind of kick. If I spank my child, the state can
lock me up in a heartbeat. But they'll strike my boy."