This past December, my daughter filed an excessive use of force complaint against the Platte Valley Youth Services Center after she was taken down to the ground, handcuffed, carried to her room by six staff members, and then placed in a leg restraint and a helmet. Shortly after, my husband and I were rudely removed from the facility for inquiring about the incident and denied our regularly scheduled visit with her.
When Mallory was transferred to Platte Valley after her previous facility was shut down due to unsafe conditions, we had hoped she was being moved to a safer environment. We had heard that Platte Valley ran a tighter ship. Unfortunately, not only does Platte Valley have the same security issues and drug problems as her previous facility (no one bats an eye when the metal detectors are set off, and kids returning from passes are smuggling drugs into the facility), it also has domineering staff members who seem to get enjoyment out of exerting their authority over youth and families alike.
My husband and I know better than anyone else how stubborn and defiant our daughter can be. I am certainly not disputing that. However, in the four years Mallory was in the custody of the Department of Human Services (DHS) and DYS, she has never been considered “combative” or “aggressive” by staff until recently at Platte Valley. In fact, we were always amazed by how compliant she was with facility staff since she never followed the rules at home.
Mallory was shuffled around a total of eight different facilities, and she was always well-liked by staff. She consistently earned various privilege levels for good behavior, including being able to work in the kitchen. She was praised by the kitchen staff at multiple facilities (most recently at Platte Valley) for being helpful and hard-working.
She never picked fights with anyone, and a few months ago, when she was assaulted by one of the other girls on her unit, she didn’t even fight back. The other girl was assaulting random girls, hoping to “catch new charges” so she would be transferred to the Weld County Jail next door (she was). At the time, Mallory was about to earn the behavior level that would allow her to go on family passes, and she didn’t want to jeopardize that by fighting back. I don’t think there are a lot of people who could maintain such self-control in that situation.
And yet, during the incident which was recently investigated by Weld County Human Services after Mallory filed a complaint with the Child Abuse Hotline, she was so “combative” and “aggressive” with staff that she had to be restrained by six staff members who took her down to the ground, handcuffed her, and carried her to her room where they then placed her in a leg wrap and a helmet.
Prior to this incident, Mallory had lost the pass privileges she had worked so hard to earn (before even being able to go on one) when she was written up by a staff member whom she insists made up details about her cussing at him in an incident report. When she appealed this decision to her unit supervisor, the unit supervisor responded, “It’s his word against yours,” and denied her appeal.
The only thing Mallory values almost as much as her freedom is fairness. When she feels she’s been treated unfairly by someone, she shuts down and doesn’t cooperate. Or, as she once told us when she was still living at home, she goes on strike. So, when staff told her she needed to switch rooms because she was on privilege restriction due to the incident report which she disputed, she refused. I understand how her stubbornness and defiance warranted a restraint. However, I believe the use of force, as she claims, was excessive.
According to the Weld County caseworker who handled her investigation, the video footage outside Mallory’s room shows that multiple staff members were in her room with her for 18 minutes after they carried her into her room. They might have been able to diffuse the situation simply by leaving her room and closing the door behind them, but instead, they continued to hold her down for 18 minutes and added insult to injury by putting her in a leg restraint and a helmet.
At our monthly team meeting at Platte Valley, my husband and I began to ask questions about the helmet and leg wrap that were used during the restraint in question. An assistant director who was present at the meeting, supposedly to answer our questions about the incident, insulted our intelligence by saying that Platte Valley did not have a helmet. We then learned that Mallory had not been physically examined by medical staff after either of two separate occasions during which she was restrained, and injuries she received as a result of the restraints were also never documented. In addition, staff did not notify us of the second restraint that occurred later that evening, nor did they notify us when they placed Mallory on suicide watch which they are required to do.
When we insisted that photographs be taken of bruises Mallory had received on her face and arms during the restraints and asked to see the helmet and leg wrap that were used, we were suddenly denied our regularly scheduled visit with our daughter following the meeting, and we were told to leave the facility. We informed the staff that we were not leaving until photos were taken of Mallory’s bruises which were already fading. Mallory’s therapist finally agreed to accompany her while photos were taken and then return to the room to show us the photos. Mallory’s client manager, who was curious about the helmet, left the room to try to locate it, saying she would also come back to the room to let us know what it looked like, since Platte Valley staff would not show it to us. When my husband and I were alone in the room, and Mallory’s therapist and client manager were both out of sight, Platte Valley staff came into the room and told us to leave again. We explained to them that we were waiting for our daughter’s professionals to return, but they didn’t care. They threatened to call law enforcement if we didn’t leave. They probably would have put us in helmets and leg restraints too, if they could have.
Ultimately, we left the room on our own, upset that we were being treated like criminals for inquiring about our child’s safety. Several staff members followed us out to the lobby, smirking as though this situation was amusing to them. I was in tears, not only because of the way we were treated, but because I had a personal understanding of what my daughter went through on a daily basis, and it broke my heart. She complained of staff constantly yelling at the youth, making them sit in silence for hours at a time. The girls’ unit was never allowed to go outside (not even during fire drills), and the kids were not allowed to have drinking cups or water bottles when they were locked in their rooms at night. Mallory had an outside art therapist who had brought her a sketch pad and colored pencils to use as a coping mechanism, but her unit supervisor would not let her have them. The last time I brought Mallory books, staff did not give them to her for several weeks, even after she asked for them. This, I feel, was punishment for the excessive use of force complaint as well as for our inquiring about it.
According to Mallory’s client manager, who saw the helmet used in Mallory’s restraint and even tried it on, its use is supposed to be phased out this month. So why was Platte Valley staff still using it in December, and especially on someone who has no history of aggression? When we spoke with the director of Platte Valley (who refused to apologize for the way we were treated by her staff), she told us she followed up with her assistant director whom she said had been misinformed about Platte Valley not having a helmet, but she offered no other explanation.
Because we were not allowed to see the helmet or leg wrap, I conducted an internet search for these items, at the suggestion of Mallory’s therapist. The only images I found were far worse than what I was picturing in my imagination and hopefully far worse than the actual devices used at Platte Valley. But because of Platte Valley’s lack of cooperation and transparency, these images from the Yell County Juvenile Detention Center in Danville, Arkansas demonstrating the WRAP, are the ones that will stick with me.
While Weld County Human Services was investigating Mallory’s excessive use of force complaint, she was confining herself to her room for most of the day because she didn’t trust the staff at Platte Valley. Quite frankly, I didn’t trust them either. The director, in particular, always evaded my questions, no matter how small, by citing some facility policy, HIPAA law, or Colorado statute that didn’t apply. She tried to convince me that I could not obtain the “physical response” report records from DYS by citing Colorado Revised Statutes 19-1-304(8)(b)(V) and 19-1-305 which actually contradicted her claims and supported my right as Mallory’s parent to access records related to a physical restraint or use of force. The director either didn’t read or didn’t understand the statutes herself, or maybe she thought I wouldn’t look them up or understand them. She was obviously not familiar with my background, nor did she know me very well.
I did obtain copies of the physical response reports from DYS records in which the phrase “unsanctioned technique” is repeated throughout multiple staff members’ accounts of the incident. I also have copies of the photos that were taken of Mallory’s bruises three days after the restraint. Conveniently for the staff involved, there are no cameras in the youth rooms. This potentially allows staff to do whatever they want to these kids while in their rooms, in this case, for 18 minutes. There is no video evidence as to whether or not the helmet and leg restraint were actually necessary. And as I have stated before, if there is no video evidence, there are no consequences.
With the investigation now complete, Weld County Human Services can only make recommendations as to how Platte Valley could have handled this situation differently. I had a conversation with the Weld County caseworker following his investigation, and after interviewing youth and staff and reviewing video footage of the unit outside Mallory’s room, these are his recommendations:
- Limit the number of staff members present while attempting verbal de-escalation techniques. The video showed roughly 25-30 staff members on the unit before Mallory was restrained (due to a shift change), which may have created a threatening environment, leading to the escalation of the situation
- At least one body camera should be worn by a supervisor involved in such incidents for transparency inside the youth rooms which have no video surveillance
Transparency is something that DYS and DHS lack considerably. While the Weld County caseworker conducting this investigation was initially sharing information about Mallory’s case with me freely, he has been ignoring my requests for a copy of his report for several weeks, as well as a request from Mallory herself. Hopefully he actually made these recommendations to Platte Valley, and hopefully Platte Valley will take them seriously. However, I question the legitimacy of this whole process which, much like everything else within DYS, wreaks of concealment.