John Brown’s Military Academy: RIH (rest in Hell) –(Demolished: 1987)-
by Yours Truly
Ever wonder what goes on in those quaint little boarding schools for children? Here’s a tale and counter-tale over 50 years old, but undoubtedly still relevant for the unwary. It’s also the very epitome of the kind of lowest reaches of Hell (A)narchists point to as the product of unalloyed hierarchy/authoritarianism.
Longtime Signal Hill resident made his mark as superintendent of city’s military academy (John Brown’s)
January 28th, 2011 · from the Signal Tribune (a Signal Hill, CA newspaper)
George Hurte’s son Brad says his father “will be remembered as a generous man with a great sense of humor.”
George V. Hurte, a longtime resident of Signal Hill, passed away peacefully on Jan. 13, 2011, surrounded by loved ones. He was 83.
A veteran of the US Navy, he was best known by generations of cadets at the Southern California Military Academy on Cherry Avenue in Signal Hill as “Major” Hurte. He served there as teacher, principal, superintendent and headmaster for the better part of four decades.
“He will be remembered for the impact he had on many young lives, instilling ‘character before career,’” said Hurte’s son Brad, referring to the Academy’s motto. “He will be remembered as a generous man with a great sense of humor.”
Brad remembers an incident at the Academy that illustrates his father’s ability to use humor to address issues. “One day, he was approached by one of the office staff who complained about confusion in the division of responsibilities in the office and requesting resolution,” said Brad. “He quietly listened, but gave no indication of action.
The next day, he handed out a new operations manual for the office entitled, ‘Quit Your Bellyaching!’ That humor defused the tension and solved the problem.”
George was born on Dec. 2, 1927, in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, the son of George William and Ida Mae Hurte. On graduating from Aliquippa High School in January of 1946, he enlisted in the US Navy, serving aboard the heavy cruiser USS Chicago in Okinawa and was honorably discharged in December of 1947.
On discharge, he joined his parents in Long Beach, where his father was working at the Long Beach Naval Shipyards. George met Marie Elizabeth White, who was then attending Polytechnic High School, at the Long Beach Christian Missionary Alliance Church in 1948 and they were married on July 8, 1949.
The couple moved to Siloam Springs, Arkansas, to attend John Brown University (JBU), where they graduated in 1951, he with a bachelors degree in theology. They then moved back to Long Beach, where Marie worked for the station manager of JBU-owned Christian radio station KGER and George taught at the JBU-owned Southern California Military Academy. In March of 1961, he was appointed superintendent. He led the Academy as superintendent and headmaster until his retirement in 1983, then the couple moved to Canyon Lake in Riverside County, where they lived until his death.
He is survived by: his wife, Marie; his twin sister, Jane Pollard; sons Ron, Brad, and Geoff, who each attended and graduated from SCMA; five grandchildren; and one great-grandson. A memorial service will take place Saturday, Jan. 29 at 2pm at Christ the King Lutheran Church, 555 N. Gartel Dr., in Walnut, and he will be interred at the Riverside National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the John Brown University Scholarship Fund, John Brown University, Attn: Susan Nece, 2000 West University, Siloam Springs, AR 72761. Gifts are tax-deductible.
The “Major’s” photo looks familiar for all of the years since a dramatically different experience at John Brown’s Military Academy on Cherry Ave. in the 50’s. There’s no photo of his wife, Marie, but she likely was involved in the administration of that bastion of child abuse as well.
Imprisoned there through 3rd and 4th elementary school years full-time as a boarded child, I came to fear and hate the place for good reason. Many other children (some had disciplinary problems in public schools) were deposited there by frustrated families either inconvenienced by their charge or out of ideas on how to raise them.
The inferior caliber of education experienced there set me back at least the two years of forced endurance–sexual molestation by older children, rank egregious physical child abuse and witnessing sexual fondling by adult staff (Mrs. French, a ‘housemother’), serious injuries from unsupervised older children and staff alike (Mrs. French and ‘Captain’ Armstrong), as well as the perverse encouragement of the school’s children, themselves, to engage in brutal acts of physical abuse.
When some of this was brought to Marie’s (possibly the young woman superintendent remembered) attention and the physical scars/wounds from Mrs. French’s assault w/a cast iron towel rack on the back of a 4th grade boy were exposed to her eyes, she did NOTHING. Years later, after he graduated from a Riverside public high school, Mrs. French still worked there!
Having a father incarcerated in New York for robbery didn’t help. Aunt Jackie (his half-sister) and uncle Jack took charge as my alcoholic paternal grandmother (Eunice) began to fail. Aunt Jackie was a brilliant woman (graduated Magna Cum Laud from Long Beach State, then went on to receive a master’s degree in political science) but she was emotionally fragile. She never had any children of her own. She attempted a career in public teaching. It proved too stressful for her. She often endured bouts of migraine headaches and stomach upset, disabling her for days.
After being deposited at John Brown’s, my father, a decorated Marine from WWII, was expected to help defray the cost from his veteran’s disability payments for wounds he suffered in the Pacific despite his incarceration. No respite from a mother intervened, for he’d absconded w/her infant and successfully hidden the child until adulthood when she was eventually located, years later, working at Hannah’s Oregon nickel smelting plant, jack hammering slag from the furnace walls. For years she’d been a San Diego Transit driver, only a stone’s throw away–a WWII Rosey the Riveter, bus driver, blast furnace attendant, cow-girl; she’d been more than he bargained for and more than he could chew. He’d met his match.
Earliest recollections of John Brown’s were as a toddler, still in kindergarten, living w/my grandmother (almost burning the house down while playing with matches in the side yard) in a residence near the railroad tracks and a tiny little grocery store owned by the family which occasionally provided me an ice cream treat for delivering a thermos of hot coffee the 1-block distance between the home and store. It was also quite close to the pedestrian underpass (if it still exists) beneath W. Pacific Coast Hwy…in the vicinity of Dawson Ave. and railroad tracks at that time.
Grandmother, because of her health and lack of a car, had difficulty supervising a rambunctious toddler doing things like climbing onto the roof and jumping off. Playing hooky from kindergarten while wandering around exploring the city, on one such occasion the vast lawn w/large wheeled cannons at John Brown’s, a for profit depository for kids established by a 2-year Navy veteran enamored by the idea of military pomp & circumstance, was discovered. It was a great business model for the time, given the nation’s gratitude and approval of its servicemen. These were times when any sailor in uniform could hitchhike without spending much time waiting for a ride. All those faux uniforms and military titles were just the ticket to prod families to open their wallets before leaving a child they weren’t eager to parent themselves.
Abandonment was only the first injury. Children were regularly subjected to the rigors of parade ground drills, uniforms, dormitory bunks (more on THAT below!) and highly orchestrated routines, but with little expertise by staff in child psychology, education, or even the love/compassion a child needs to remain healthy. Subjecting the tykes to military discipline was imagined good for them–a paradigm later portrayed in scenes from The Sound Of Music. ‘Major’ Hurte’s fundamentalist Christianity proved to be the perfect matrix for a ’spare the rod, spoil the child’ regimen. This underlying ill-conceived maxim was not only counter-productive, but became a cloak for criminal child abuse that remains shocking after all these years.
Mrs. French was a dour ‘housemother’ at the academy. Children were required to address all adults as ’sir’ or ‘mam’ and the supervising adult males by their faux military titles. From time to time, Mrs. French would lapse into paranoid histrionics, ranting about how we just called her ma’m out of duty and not because we ‘loved’ her.
We had a group shower enclosure in our ‘barracks’/dormitory and a group urinal (as was common on military bases) for the children’s use. It goes without saying this was an all boys school. 3rd graders gave Mrs. French the pretext to demonstrate how we were to clean ourselves by rubbing one boy’s penis with soap in the shower while we watched. Mrs. French seemed entirely too fond of this particular lesson, all too often.
Bunks consisted of a wooden cubbyhole stacked end to end w/a thin mattress and 2 drawers for our clothing beneath. The day came when the handyman/custodian installed a new chrome plated wrought iron towel rack at the foot end of our bunks. The bunks were fairly short, even for a child. Sleep inadvertently placed my feet on the newly installed hexagonal iron towel rack, causing it to break away from the wooden partition on which it had been installed with screws too short.
Mrs. French discovered this calamity during her morning inspection. Enraged, she seized the thin towel rack, chased me into the boys lavatory, and cornered me by the urinal where she proceeded to beat me, as I cowered, with the cast iron towel rack, leaving numerous open wounds and scars on my back.
Even as a child, escape from that Hellhole became an imperative. Despite age, the way to my aunt & uncle’s home, 6-miles distant, was known as near Milikan High School. The escape plan was poorly executed. Waiting, naturally, until dark, but without the presence of mind to wear dark non-reflective clothing in an imagined walk to freedom, the city’s streets had been learned by wandering alone on them instead of attending kindergarten.
As it so happened, that very night was the occasion for some kind of meeting in which all the ’school’ staff attended. Getting no farther than an empty overgrown field across the street when cars started to exit the facility, I crouched low to the ground to avoid their headlights but was spotted by one. After complaining about the injuries from Mrs. French, a young woman superintendent (probably Marie) had me lift my shirt and examined the wounds and scabs. She said nothing–no words of sympathy or concern. Given Mrs. French’s long career there, she also did nothing about it. Possibly she decided to keep it quiet for liability reasons even in those days of treating children like brats.
So yeah, Mrs. French was a pervert and violent child abuser. But we have our share of mentally ill in a country this size–unfortunately, some have charge over our children. A couple of years later, a violent assault at the hands of a Mr. Danny, the 6th grade teacher at Emerson Elementary School in Long Beach, was endured. Mr. Danny was most careful to make certain no one was looking when he grabbed the 12 year old student by the throat and slammed him against the outside wall of the bungalow classroom. The schools had trouble providing enough classroom space for these early baby boomers. Dr. Spock books hadn’t become popular as yet, and parentis in locus was never questioned.
Lack of supervision, and even malicious supervision was another insidious evil promoted by John Brown’s. One older kid came to school with a handgun. Whether it was loaded remains unknown. But, he terrorized me and others with it. This juvenile delinquent was never disciplined for it. Boys will be boys?
Children, like the rest of us, have conflicts and confrontations. One of these resulted in the top of my head slammed full force into a masonry wall. Years later, X-rays would reveal a cervical anomaly that could have been the result. Dyslexia was another. It’s difficult to diagnose proximate cause decades later.
One memory of the ‘care’ provided by John Brown’s to its charges stands out. There was a nearby park we’d be taken to for outings. There were perhaps 8-10 boys in our group shepherded by ‘Captain’ Armstrong. We were all under 10 years old, ranging from 8-9. Two of the boys got into a fight and the loser lay on the park’s grass crying. This must have embarrassed ‘Captain’ Armstrong, who proceeded to berate the sobbing boy. As the lad lay on the ground, Armstrong encouraged each of us to give him a kick in turn, presumably to teach him to be more manly. Each of the boys followed Armstrong’s instructions, as did I, for fear the others would turn on a new victim!
The scholastic quality at John Brown’s was abysmal. It took years to recover from the endemic poor reading levels and lack of quality instructors.
Eventually, my aunt & uncle removed me from the school after I summoned the courage to detail my grievances–courage that was a long time coming. A note of explanation is in order when it comes to why a child is reluctant to blow the whistle on such blatant abuse.
First, a child tends to internalize the abuse and believe it’s because of failure/short comings on the child’s part–something the child is reluctant to admit: i.e. failure.
Next, the child may believe (as did I) nobody will care or he/she won’t be believed. There was ample evidence of that at John Brown’s. It takes some courage and maturity for a child to stand up to abusive adults or even articulate the abuse because children don’t understand they have certain inalienable rights. Adults typically are curiously silent about explaining those rights to children.
Over the ensuing years, after being liberated from this canker sore on Signal Hill, the flames of hatred and resentment remained though dying down to a hot ember. After graduating from high school, I supposed I was ready to return to John Brown’s and confront one of its tormentors, Mrs. French.
Upon arrival, indeed, she was still working there these years later as a ‘housemother’–a perversion of the term in her case. After identifying myself, she exploded into a cacophony of euphoria: “Oh! It’s one of my boys come back to see me. How wonderful!”
The inability to tell her what an evil perverted witch she was, but couldn’t bring myself to say, remains a mystery. Finding my voice came later in life. The threads of such early extreme abuse I (and many others) experienced at John Brown’s run deep. They can never be removed from the warp & weave of the personalities coalesced during those tender years.
Google’s map of John Brown’s indicates it may have been purchased by someone who changed its name. The only good thing that can be said of John Brown’s would also apply to Auschwitz. It’s an example of what can happen when we allow others who do not love them to supervise our children.
Who said everything about Christmas has gone Commercial? It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. Here, the eternal flame that dwells in the human heart burns brightest as these wise guys practice extreme shepherding.
PORTLAND, Ore. – For the past nine months a group of people has taken over the home of a 66-year-old school teacher and Portland police say they’re part of a radical arm of the Occupy Movement.
Freedom?…or Fraud?
When is a building ‘abandoned’ and how does defrauding the owner square with the anti-capitalist sentiments of politically radical street elements? One sometimes hears “F(*)CK YOUR STUFF!” from this crowd. Have they become the new consumption police deciding pursuant to their own lights whose property rights are to be respected and whose are not?–or perhaps no one at all?
This Brave New World we’re seductively invited into on the basis of the multitude of sins and atrocities committed everyday by the existing regime appears to lead to the edge of the abyss where the old, the infirm, and the gullible are simply objects to be exploited on the theory that ‘rights’ don’t really exist, or at least we shouldn’t see the state as defending them.
In the wake of R-74’s passage, Gay Marriage is now legal in the State of Washington. Thus, it wound its way into the State Capitol campus as ~20 couples tied the knot in mass & multiple ceremonies beneath the stately Rotunda this Saturday. The first couple (having reserved the building for the day) to give their vows was Tina and Teresa Guajardo. They generously shared the joy of this historical occasion by inviting all gay couples to hold their weddings there the same day. Yours truly wasn’t about to miss such a seminal event and brought all the tools to capture the many joyful moments.
11:30a-12:30p The Yelm Community Choir performed by the Christmas Tree beneath the Rotunda.
12:30p Teresa & Tina were wedded on the 3rd Floor North Balcony.
1:00p-2:30p Individual marriage ceremonies were held on 3rd & 4th floor balconies.
1:30p A Large simultaneous marriage ceremony has performed on the East Balcony.
1:00p-3:00p A Potluck reception was held in the Columbia Room.
4:00p-? The Capitol building closed and the ongoing reception migrated to the Urban Onion at the historic Olympia Hotel on Legion Way.
Officials were available for both religious and non-religious ceremonies. Photographers were available, offering their services free of charge.
The atmosphere was electric. Smiles were everywhere mixed with laughter and an occasional trembling voice as the newly weds swore their love and devotion to one another. The place was packed. The good vibes were so intense, this reporter had to decompress in a humbler nearby environment by helping the ‘Food, Not Bombs’ program that feeds the homeless hot meals on Saturday evenings at the Olympia Timberland Library.
It’s been said a picture is worth a thousand words. The happiness radiating from the faces of newly wedded same-sex couples and their friends seen in the following snaps speaks volumes and proves the maxim.
The Jaybirds hail from Kitsap County to peform what they call a raucous acappella experience. Dressed in cowboy drag while singing Christmas Carols and old western standards, they cut a sweet image straight from Norman Rockwell’s Americana.
The charming quartet consisted of Mike Menefee, Marshall Starkenburg, Jaymes Dunlap, and Will Dunlap.
Unfortunately, the Shelton Timberland Library manager (Patty Ayala Ross) played the Grinch. But you can read/hear more on that by checking out the audio at the end of this article.
It’s a little thing, especially for a library, known as the 1st Amendment and journalism.
The dude w/kid blocking the view toward the end of the 2nd clip seemed on a mission and refused to share the view of these talented singers. Frankly, he should wear a whole lot more makeup if he wants to mug for the camera.
Singing w/The Jaybirds
(1/2)
Singing w/The Jaybirds
(2/2)
It was all smiles & good vibes up until the end when the schmuck w/toddler on his shoulders decided to park on the viewpoint. No amount of wincing dissuaded him–clearly he wanted to be in pictures.
As it turns out, the angst expressed by library mgr. Patty Ross wasn’t so much her heart felt urge to be the Jaybirds’ knight errant as a pretext for her family. Ms. Ross has converted the Shelton Public Timberland Library into her front room and imposes the same rules upon patrons. What she failed owning up to was she resented photos being taken that included her loved ones. Reckoning she had the brute force of the state behind her, Ms. Ross proceeded to create a scene and call local police when told her permission to record in a public space/venue wasn’t required. The audio of this exchange and later conversation with officer G. Blaylock of the Shelton police can be heard by CLICKING on the link below.
Patty Ross: petty tyrant
Swine Flew
Dude & Dog
Dude & Jackson
Jackson Riley
Patty & Ashley Ross
Mistress w/Pet
The Ross House
CLICKING on Reporter offers Ross a Clue will provide the audio of the self appointed Ross trying to be everyone’s lawyer as a pretext for shutting down the exercise of 1st Amendment guarantees.
CLICKING on 911-audio will provide the recording of Patty Ross making a false police report to unlawfully trespass a reporter from Shelton’s Public Library. Early on, in the tape, she can be heard baiting the reporter, asking, “Don’t you want to wait for the police?”
20 Connecticut children and 7 adults are dead as a result of 1 heavily armed mentally imbalanced individual w/a grudge. Ban guns, demand the naysayers. THIS, they argue, is why.
Lisa Belkin, a liberal columnist for the Huffington Post argues Gun Control Is A Parenting Issue. She writes:
More than a dozen children went to elementary school this morning and were dead before lunch.
White House spokesman Jay Carney says today is not the day to talk about gun control.
I disagree. That’s all we should talk about today.
We are heartbroken, yes. But saying that will fix nothing. It won’t bring anyone back, and it won’t keep this from happening again. And of course we know the parents of Newtown could have been any one of us. That’s important to remember, but it isn’t enough, because the knowing doesn’t change the fact that we could still be next.
So we can’t just do as we did after Columbine, after Virginia Tech, after Aurora. We can’t just grieve and hold our children close. We have to demand that our country earn the right to call itself a civilized nation. We need to do this because our central job as parents — maybe our only job, really — is to keep our children safe so they can grow up. Easy access to guns keeps us from doing that job.
Yet we haven’t banned aircraft in the wake of 9/11, nor have we eliminated traffic during school hours. The uncomfortable truth is, Guns prevent more crime by at least 10:1 than they’re used to commit. Arguably, guns provide a measure of security and independence to seniors–just ask the victims of some home invasions…which are growing in numbers, even in bucolic Mason County.
It’s well known the huge assembly line hamburger factories put public health at risk from e-coli, yet the abattoirs grind on. It’s also known, but conveniently ignored, that the #1 killer of children is NOT guns, but cars. Far more children/teens die from auto accidents than any other cause or combination. Yet does the Parent in Chief allude to prohibiting all teens from driving? Of course not. Many animal lovers feel it’s cruel to de-claw cats precisely because the felines can no longer defend themselves. Yet these same geniuses think nothing of ‘de-clawing’ humans to where they can no longer effectively defend themselves. We’re to be left cowering in our homes, etc. praying that whoever is smashing in the door for their home invasion or discovering whatever dark crevice we choose to hide will be slow enough for the cops to arrive or even lose interest.
Ms. Belkin is quick to hesitate at the prospect of armed school teachers, suggesting this would be too brutal an atmosphere to contemplate for our kids. Yet armed guards at our local social security office, federal & county courthouses, and bullet proof windows at our college campuses & DSHS office scarcely raise an eyebrow. Perhaps if we made our children honorary CEO’s and government minions, they’d be better defended?
More likely Tim McVeigh was right: Collateral Damage! There are no fences in Shelton to keep the kiddies off the train tracks that course a couple of feet away from back yards. And for those children who are homeless?–they don’t even merit a public restroom open 24/7. Let us not forget this is a County that was eager to ban smoking from the parks our children use unless it was rendered in the service of Adage and Simpson (aka: Green Diamond). Many of our County & City officials are still on that track–it’s all LEGAL, they say! Get a job and choke a kid. Choking kids is good for the economy, they reason. And who has tested the milk from Mason County mothers for Dioxin? Parts of the County are saturated with this most persistent, most toxic, and most mutagenic of poisons deliberately dumped into our harbor and uncertified local landfills by none other than the Santa of Mason, aka: Simpson, Green Diamond, etc.
But guns do kill people quicker–they’re designed to do precisely that. The 2nd Amendment is NOT about duck hunting. While we’re apologizing to the parents of the 20 children slaughtered in Connecticut, perhaps New York (where the Sullivan law makes possession of handguns illegal) should apologize to all the victims shot like fish in a barrel on the Long Island commuter train that carried Colin Ferguson charged with shooting 23 people, 5 of them fatally. Mr. Ferguson wasn’t tackled until he stopped to reload a 3rd time. If even a couple of passengers had been armed, he could have been stopped much earlier.
Or, the diners at the Luby’s massacre, a mass murder that took place on October 16, 1991, in Killeen, Texas, United States when George Hennard (born October 15, 1956) drove his pickup truck into a Luby’s cafeteria and shot 23 people to death while wounding another 20, subsequently committing suicide by shooting himself. It was the deadliest shooting rampage in American history until the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. Any of those victims, were they still alive, would argue in favor of the right to meaningful self defense. The 2nd Amendment codifies that right, a right some argue is tantamount to a duty.
If the police, the social security office, the federal and local courthouses, the park rangers, the mall/Wal-Mart rent-a-cops, airport security drones, FBI, banks, factory/lumber mill guards, juvenile probation officers, college campuses, and even FEMA goons need guns, then (WE!) the People need guns for precisely the same reason: To defend against ALL enemies, both foreign and domestic! If ever that proposition was valid, it is more so today. Guns are serious business–too serious to allow a mental basket case to destroy as a bulwark for democracy and against tyranny/violence, state sponsored or otherwise. It is a giant mistake to contemplate allowing the state to have a monopoly on the tools/instruments of force.
Come to think of it, voting undoubtedly leads to some totally asinine laws and elected officials–sometimes precipitating vanity wars which put EVERYONE at risk or worse. But few propose banning voting. The reason is simple: We don’t make the rule from the exception! Rather, the exception proves the rule. It’s been estimated some 10% of Americans are afflicted with some variety of mental illness–ALL THE MORE REASON FOR DEFERENCE TO THE 2nd Amendment!
Mental Illness: A Mom’s Dilemma
From: Soccer Mom
In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.
Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.
“I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises.
“They are navy blue,” I told him. “Your school’s dress code says black or khaki pants only.”
“They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!”
“You can’t wear whatever pants you want to,” I said, my tone affable, reasonable. “And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You’re grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.”
I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.
A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.
That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist.
We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work.
At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he’s in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He’s in a good mood most of the time. But when he’s not, watch out. And it’s impossible to predict what will set him off.
Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the district’s most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who can’t function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30-1:50 Monday through Friday until they turn 18.
The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, “Look, Mom, I’m really sorry. Can I have video games back today?”
“No way,” I told him. “You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly.”
His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. “Then I’m going to kill myself,” he said. “I’m going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself.”
That was it. After the knife incident, I told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right.
“Where are you taking me?” he said, suddenly worried. “Where are we going?”
“You know where we are going,” I replied.
“No! You can’t do that to me! You’re sending me to hell! You’re sending me straight to hell!”
I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waiving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. “Call the police,” I said. “Hurry.”
Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn’t escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I’m still stronger than he is, but I won’t be for much longer.
The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork—“Were there any difficulties with….at what age did your child….were there any problems with…has your child ever experienced…does your child have….”
At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You’ll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing.
For days, my son insisted that I was lying—that I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, “I hate you. And I’m going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here.”
By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I’ve heard those promises for years. I don’t believe them anymore.
On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.”
And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.
I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.
According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map). Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.
When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.”
I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise—in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population. (http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/09/05/us-number-mentally-ill-prisons-quadru…)
With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail, and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation’s largest treatment centers in 2011 (http://www.npr.org/2011/09/04/140167676/nations-jails-struggle-with-ment…)
No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”
I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal.
WALLA WALLA, Wash. – A Washington state Corrections Department spokeswoman says four units of the Washington State Penitentiary remain on lockdown a day after three correctional officers were injured in an altercation with multiple inmates.
Spokeswoman Shari Hall said late Wednesday that preliminary reports indict Tuesday’s assault was gang-related.
She says the three officers suffered “significant injuries.” They have been released from a hospital and are recovering at home.
Superintendent Steve Sinclair commended the officers.
No inmates were seriously injured. Hall said earlier that nine inmates from the prison’s West Complex were segregated after the incident.
The West Complex is a close-custody unit that houses about 800 offenders, including the prison’s gang units.
First come the reports that the victims had a gun, and fired shots at officers (Initial reports said the suspects in the car had fired shots at police officers). Those items headline the biggest stories, leaving a lasting impression in the public’s mind. Only days later do we find out that no gun was ever found and no casings were ever discovered. (The Oakland Police initially reported that Alan was in a “gun battle” with the officer who shot him, a disreputable lie of the highest order, only retracted days after the stories had already been published).
Almost as quickly comes the slander: the person or people killed were “bad guys”, with police records, somehow justifying the killing. (The Oakland Police immediately released information that Alan was on probation and had a juvenile record, as if this somehow justified his murder. They later went on to suggest he was involved in a “drug deal” just minutes before he was killed, another blatant lie.) Only the most astute realize that all this “information” is irrelevant — the police at both scenes had no access to this knowledge; it could not have affected their actions because they were unaware of it, and yet it is used to imply justification for what actions the officers took and to suggest the victims “had it coming.”
As more and more evidence is released, more and more doubt appears. In the Cleveland case, we learn that police were apparently ordered to halt the high-speed chase; instead they continued it. Police, who have claimed their lives were in danger, apparently “stopped to reload.” (In Alan’s case, the officer who shot him multiple times behaved in a bizarre and inconsistent manner, if one is to believe his own sworn statement, let alone if we consider the statement’s apparent conflict with witness claims and the evidence).
Cleveland’s police don’t have dashboard cameras on most of their units, nor are their officers equipped with chest or lapel cameras. So the claims they make as to what occurred can never be verified. (In Oakland, police are supposed to enable their lapel cameras whenever engaging the public. But for some “mysterious” reason Office Masso, who shot Alan, failed to turn his on, even though there was no emergency situation when he and his partner made the decision to stop Alan and his friends).
In Cleveland, the driver of the vehicle apparently used the car as a weapon once cornered, driving it at police. But what of the passenger? Did the police give any thought to the possibility that she might have been an unwilling rider, caught up in a crazy 100-mph chase, unable to extricate herself? Was there no plausible alternative to conducting a high-speed 22-mile chase at night that could have easily resulted in pedestrian, bystander or police deaths (…innocent bystanders constitute 42 percent of those killed or injured in police pursuits.) and which probablyviolated their own policy on vehicular pursuit? (In Oakland, Officer Masso chased Alan Blueford into a crowd of people attending a party, then shot Alan amidst the partygoers, apparently oblivious to the risks of ricochets or stray bullets.)
“The real problem here is the criminal element,” D’Angelo said. “The criminals have become more lawless. But we, as a society, focus on the officers who respond to the lawless element. We don’t call out the people who initiate this conduct… officers daily are forced to respond to an ever-growing criminal element.”
I don’t know what “The criminals have become more lawless” means, but facts are facts. Crime has diminished by almost startling amounts in the last couple of decades. That police feel the need to confront less and less of it with more and more violence is symptomatic of paranoia, not a “real problem.” (Oakland’s police are similarly convinced that lurking around every corner is a gang of young men of color ready to commit every conceivable violation of the criminal code. Hence their calls for gang injunctions, curfews and further crackdowns so that they will have not only the right but the obligation to stop every young man of color on the streets of Oakland to harrass them.)
Finally all police believe they are never wrong, their actions never unjustified. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer relates
The figures involving investigations of use of force have dramatically favored officers. All of the 4,427 investigations by supervisors from Jan. 1, 2003, through Sept. 9, 2006, ended in the officers’ favor, The Plain Dealer reported in 2007.
Uh, “dramatically favored” is nothing less than studied understatement here when every single investigation of 4,427 comes up empty of officer misconduct. Even Mother Teresa couldn’t have scored that highly when she appeared before St. Peter. (One of the principal complaints the Federal Monitor of the Oakland Police noted in his latest scathing report was that OPD’s Internal Affairs Department almost inevitably sided with their own when conducting use of force investigations, and that superior officers always concluded that their underlings use of force or behavior was justified).
No one knows what the ultimate results of the investigations into these deaths on the streets of Cleveland, and Alan’s death on the street in Oakland, will show. But based on all past evidence, we can make some pretty confident predictions, and their arc does not bend towards justice.
Hard on the heels of their return from performing in the NYC Lincoln Center, Matthew Blegen directed Anna’s Bay Chorale in wowing his Shelton patrons with what has become the group’s signature piece: a rousing exquisitely sung rendition of Handel’s Messiah. One must travel far to much larger venues before finding anything faintly comparable. Salt Lake City and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir come to mind.
Sunday’s Matinee schedule managed about 3/4ths of a full house, but those in attendance were enthusiastically appreciative. They’d arrived to discover a finely tuned elegant performing arts machine incorporating local talent as the jewels and mainspring. The $12 tickets were a steal for what would easily cost $35+ in Seattle without the frustration of searching for a parking spot or fighting traffic.
Sopranos: Tess Altiveros, Erin Burgman, Miceal Carnahan, Barbara Nesmith
Tenor: David Carnahan
Baritone: Eric Blegen
Mezzo Sopranos: Rachel Manning, Cathryn Mecham, Jubilee Whitman
Bass: Paul Nakhla
Violin I: Katherine Sartori (Concertmaster), Monica Boros, Jon Hanson, Dan Szekely
Violin II: Tonni Johnston, Debra Akerlund, Jennifer Kwintner, Joshua Grice
How is it victims of oppression cooperate in their own repression/doom? The documented tales of how Warsaw Jews cooperated in policing their own for the Nazis seems incomprehensible though we’re witnessing a repetition as the very basics of life are exhausted for corporate profits while we collectively wring our hands and debate whether these companies are people.
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The “Major’s” photo looks familiar for all of the years since a dramatically different experience at John Brown’s Military Academy on Cherry Ave. in the 50’s. There’s no photo of his wife, Marie, but she likely was involved in the administration of that bastion of child abuse as well.
Imprisoned there through 3rd and 4th elementary school years full-time as a boarded child, I came to fear and hate the place for good reason. Many other children (some had disciplinary problems in public schools) were deposited there by frustrated families either inconvenienced by their charge or out of ideas on how to raise them.
The inferior caliber of education experienced there set me back at least the two years of forced endurance–sexual molestation by older children, rank egregious physical child abuse and witnessing sexual fondling by adult staff (Mrs. French, a ‘housemother’), serious injuries from unsupervised older children and staff alike (Mrs. French and ‘Captain’ Armstrong), as well as the perverse encouragement of the school’s children, themselves, to engage in brutal acts of physical abuse.
When some of this was brought to Marie’s (possibly the young woman superintendent remembered) attention and the physical scars/wounds from Mrs. French’s assault w/a cast iron towel rack on the back of a 4th grade boy were exposed to her eyes, she did NOTHING. Years later, after he graduated from a Riverside public high school, Mrs. French still worked there!
Having a father incarcerated in New York for robbery didn’t help. Aunt Jackie (his half-sister) and uncle Jack took charge as my alcoholic paternal grandmother (Eunice) began to fail. Aunt Jackie was a brilliant woman (graduated Magna Cum Laud from Long Beach State, then went on to receive a master’s degree in political science) but she was emotionally fragile. She never had any children of her own. She attempted a career in public teaching. It proved too stressful for her. She often endured bouts of migraine headaches and stomach upset, disabling her for days.
After being deposited at John Brown’s, my father, a decorated Marine from WWII, was expected to help defray the cost from his veteran’s disability payments for wounds he suffered in the Pacific despite his incarceration. No respite from a mother intervened, for he’d absconded w/her infant and successfully hidden the child until adulthood when she was eventually located, years later, working at Hannah’s Oregon nickel smelting plant, jack hammering slag from the furnace walls. For years she’d been a San Diego Transit driver, only a stone’s throw away–a WWII Rosey the Riveter, bus driver, blast furnace attendant, cow-girl; she’d been more than he bargained for and more than he could chew. He’d met his match.
Earliest recollections of John Brown’s were as a toddler, still in kindergarten, living w/my grandmother (almost burning the house down while playing with matches in the side yard) in a residence near the railroad tracks and a tiny little grocery store owned by the family which occasionally provided me an ice cream treat for delivering a thermos of hot coffee the 1-block distance between the home and store. It was also quite close to the pedestrian underpass (if it still exists) beneath W. Pacific Coast Hwy…in the vicinity of Dawson Ave. and railroad tracks at that time.
Grandmother, because of her health and lack of a car, had difficulty supervising a rambunctious toddler doing things like climbing onto the roof and jumping off. Playing hooky from kindergarten while wandering around exploring the city, on one such occasion the vast lawn w/large wheeled cannons at John Brown’s, a for profit depository for kids established by a 2-year Navy veteran enamored by the idea of military pomp & circumstance, was discovered. It was a great business model for the time, given the nation’s gratitude and approval of its servicemen. These were times when any sailor in uniform could hitchhike without spending much time waiting for a ride. All those faux uniforms and military titles were just the ticket to prod families to open their wallets before leaving a child they weren’t eager to parent themselves.
Abandonment was only the first injury. Children were regularly subjected to the rigors of parade ground drills, uniforms, dormitory bunks (more on THAT below!) and highly orchestrated routines, but with little expertise by staff in child psychology, education, or even the love/compassion a child needs to remain healthy. Subjecting the tykes to military discipline was imagined good for them–a paradigm later portrayed in scenes from The Sound Of Music. ‘Major’ Hurte’s fundamentalist Christianity proved to be the perfect matrix for a ’spare the rod, spoil the child’ regimen. This underlying ill-conceived maxim was not only counter-productive, but became a cloak for criminal child abuse that remains shocking after all these years.
Mrs. French was a dour ‘housemother’ at the academy. Children were required to address all adults as ’sir’ or ‘mam’ and the supervising adult males by their faux military titles. From time to time, Mrs. French would lapse into paranoid histrionics, ranting about how we just called her ma’m out of duty and not because we ‘loved’ her.
We had a group shower enclosure in our ‘barracks’/dormitory and a group urinal (as was common on military bases) for the children’s use. It goes without saying this was an all boys school. 3rd graders gave Mrs. French the pretext to demonstrate how we were to clean ourselves by rubbing one boy’s penis with soap in the shower while we watched. Mrs. French seemed entirely too fond of this particular lesson, all too often.
Bunks consisted of a wooden cubbyhole stacked end to end w/a thin mattress and 2 drawers for our clothing beneath. The day came when the handyman/custodian installed a new chrome plated wrought iron towel rack at the foot end of our bunks. The bunks were fairly short, even for a child. Sleep inadvertently placed my feet on the newly installed hexagonal iron towel rack, causing it to break away from the wooden partition on which it had been installed with screws too short.
Mrs. French discovered this calamity during her morning inspection. Enraged, she seized the thin towel rack, chased me into the boys lavatory, and cornered me by the urinal where she proceeded to beat me, as I cowered, with the cast iron towel rack, leaving numerous open wounds and scars on my back.
Even as a child, escape from that Hellhole became an imperative. Despite age, the way to my aunt & uncle’s home, 6-miles distant, was known as near Milikan High School. The escape plan was poorly executed. Waiting, naturally, until dark, but without the presence of mind to wear dark non-reflective clothing in an imagined walk to freedom, the city’s streets had been learned by wandering alone on them instead of attending kindergarten.
As it so happened, that very night was the occasion for some kind of meeting in which all the ’school’ staff attended. Getting no farther than an empty overgrown field across the street when cars started to exit the facility, I crouched low to the ground to avoid their headlights but was spotted by one. After complaining about the injuries from Mrs. French, a young woman superintendent (probably Marie) had me lift my shirt and examined the wounds and scabs. She said nothing–no words of sympathy or concern. Given Mrs. French’s long career there, she also did nothing about it. Possibly she decided to keep it quiet for liability reasons even in those days of treating children like brats.
So yeah, Mrs. French was a pervert and violent child abuser. But we have our share of mentally ill in a country this size–unfortunately, some have charge over our children. A couple of years later, a violent assault at the hands of a Mr. Danny, the 6th grade teacher at Emerson Elementary School in Long Beach, was endured. Mr. Danny was most careful to make certain no one was looking when he grabbed the 12 year old student by the throat and slammed him against the outside wall of the bungalow classroom. The schools had trouble providing enough classroom space for these early baby boomers. Dr. Spock books hadn’t become popular as yet, and parentis in locus was never questioned.
Lack of supervision, and even malicious supervision was another insidious evil promoted by John Brown’s. One older kid came to school with a handgun. Whether it was loaded remains unknown. But, he terrorized me and others with it. This juvenile delinquent was never disciplined for it. Boys will be boys?
Children, like the rest of us, have conflicts and confrontations. One of these resulted in the top of my head slammed full force into a masonry wall. Years later, X-rays would reveal a cervical anomaly that could have been the result. Dyslexia was another. It’s difficult to diagnose proximate cause decades later.
One memory of the ‘care’ provided by John Brown’s to its charges stands out. There was a nearby park we’d be taken to for outings. There were perhaps 8-10 boys in our group shepherded by ‘Captain’ Armstrong. We were all under 10 years old, ranging from 8-9. Two of the boys got into a fight and the loser lay on the park’s grass crying. This must have embarrassed ‘Captain’ Armstrong, who proceeded to berate the sobbing boy. As the lad lay on the ground, Armstrong encouraged each of us to give him a kick in turn, presumably to teach him to be more manly. Each of the boys followed Armstrong’s instructions, as did I, for fear the others would turn on a new victim!
The scholastic quality at John Brown’s was abysmal. It took years to recover from the endemic poor reading levels and lack of quality instructors.
Eventually, my aunt & uncle removed me from the school after I summoned the courage to detail my grievances–courage that was a long time coming. A note of explanation is in order when it comes to why a child is reluctant to blow the whistle on such blatant abuse.
First, a child tends to internalize the abuse and believe it’s because of failure/short comings on the child’s part–something the child is reluctant to admit: i.e. failure.
Next, the child may believe (as did I) nobody will care or he/she won’t be believed. There was ample evidence of that at John Brown’s. It takes some courage and maturity for a child to stand up to abusive adults or even articulate the abuse because children don’t understand they have certain inalienable rights. Adults typically are curiously silent about explaining those rights to children.
Over the ensuing years, after being liberated from this canker sore on Signal Hill, the flames of hatred and resentment remained though dying down to a hot ember. After graduating from high school, I supposed I was ready to return to John Brown’s and confront one of its tormentors, Mrs. French.
Upon arrival, indeed, she was still working there these years later as a ‘housemother’–a perversion of the term in her case. After identifying myself, she exploded into a cacophony of euphoria: “Oh! It’s one of my boys come back to see me. How wonderful!”
The inability to tell her what an evil perverted witch she was, but couldn’t bring myself to say, remains a mystery. Finding my voice came later in life. The threads of such early extreme abuse I (and many others) experienced at John Brown’s run deep. They can never be removed from the warp & weave of the personalities coalesced during those tender years.
Google’s map of John Brown’s indicates it may have been purchased by someone who changed its name. The only good thing that can be said of John Brown’s would also apply to Auschwitz. It’s an example of what can happen when we allow others who do not love them to supervise our children.