Alleged abuse at the Florida Industrial School for boys during the 1950s and 1960s is currently under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice acknowledged the abuse by placing a plaque in front of the White House this past October. The school in Marianna, Florida is now known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.
Robert Straley and Michael O’McCarthy, two of the men who were abused at the reform school and formed the group the White House Boys, gave depositions to FDLE and are urging others to come forward and tell their stories.
FDLE is investigating the claims of abuse and the unidentified graves located where the segregated, black side of the school once was.
In 2006, Straley saw video of what some believe led to the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson at the Bay County Boot Camp. It was that video that caused Straley to remember the night he was escorted to what former child prisoners call the “rape room”. It is believed the underground room is still located underneath the Dozier administration building.
Straley realized that many others were suffering from the same hellish memories and decided to go public in an effort to help them. When he contacted journalist O’McCarthy about the story, he had no idea that O’McCarthy had also been abused at the school.
According to Straley and O’McCarthy, some 300 to 400 people have come forward, all with claims of having been abused at the school.
They say they have also received calls from a few long-time residents who say the search for bodies isn’t off the mark, but they are looking in the wrong place.
The anonymous callers claim some boys were tilled straight into the soil of local rural fields. Kids from the school were often used as child labor in the local farm community.
Straley is careful to say not every adult at the school was abusive; it was just a handful of men, “the night watchers,” who terrorized the young men.
If you have information on what possibly occurred at the Florida School for Boys contact:
Robert Straley or Michael O’McCarthy, at thewhitehouseboys@gmail.com
Or
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, (850) 410-7000
Statements from The White House Boys – 11/1/08
(WARNING: Disturbing content)
jcfloridian.com
Showing posts with label Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Show all posts
Monday, January 19, 2009
Thursday, December 18, 2008
What Will the “White House Boys” Investigation Turn Up?
Six weeks ago the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice invited five men back to the school to dedicate a plaque outside the cinder block building where they were beaten and to close it down forever.
Roger Kiser, 63, of Brunswick, Ga., believes he witnessed two to three deaths while at the school in 1958 and 1959 and again in 1960. One was a white boy shaking cream to make butter under the dining table, when a school attendant suspected him of masturbating. He was taken away "and never seen again."
Another time, he saw one of the school staff members order two boys into the tumble dryer. Later, their bodies were hauled away and he and others were ordered to say nothing about it.
They were warned, Kiser said, that if they caught us talking to them "we would be taken to the White House and beaten. Corporal punishment was the means by which they controlled us," he said. "We lived in daily fear."
The men have also asked that the investigation include the school's use of the boys for slave labor, sexual abuse, sex trafficking and kidnapping for sexual assault.
But, a local historian, Dale Cox, says the graves really aren't that mysterious.
~ Ten supposedly date back to a 1914 fire that started when an oil lamp exploded in the main dormitory. Eight students and two employees were killed in that fire.
~ Eleven students and one employee died when an influenza epidemic struck in 1918.
That seemingly accounts for 22 of the 32 graves.
Cox claims the others all date from prior to 1949.
~ Three are allegedly of pets the students kept at the school.
~ An additional seven students died from various causes between 1897 and 1949 and also buried in cemetery.
Cox may or may not be right. I do wonder why the families of the students and employees who supposedly died and were buried at the Florida School for Boys didn’t claim the remains of their loved ones for a proper burial.
I’m not sure what the graves will yield, however the stories the White House Boys tell are pretty horrific, and a thorough investigation is clearly warranted!
ireport
Chron.com
CNN
Roger Kiser, 63, of Brunswick, Ga., believes he witnessed two to three deaths while at the school in 1958 and 1959 and again in 1960. One was a white boy shaking cream to make butter under the dining table, when a school attendant suspected him of masturbating. He was taken away "and never seen again."
Another time, he saw one of the school staff members order two boys into the tumble dryer. Later, their bodies were hauled away and he and others were ordered to say nothing about it.
They were warned, Kiser said, that if they caught us talking to them "we would be taken to the White House and beaten. Corporal punishment was the means by which they controlled us," he said. "We lived in daily fear."
The men have also asked that the investigation include the school's use of the boys for slave labor, sexual abuse, sex trafficking and kidnapping for sexual assault.
But, a local historian, Dale Cox, says the graves really aren't that mysterious.
~ Ten supposedly date back to a 1914 fire that started when an oil lamp exploded in the main dormitory. Eight students and two employees were killed in that fire.
~ Eleven students and one employee died when an influenza epidemic struck in 1918.
That seemingly accounts for 22 of the 32 graves.
Cox claims the others all date from prior to 1949.
~ Three are allegedly of pets the students kept at the school.
~ An additional seven students died from various causes between 1897 and 1949 and also buried in cemetery.
Cox may or may not be right. I do wonder why the families of the students and employees who supposedly died and were buried at the Florida School for Boys didn’t claim the remains of their loved ones for a proper burial.
I’m not sure what the graves will yield, however the stories the White House Boys tell are pretty horrific, and a thorough investigation is clearly warranted!
ireport
Chron.com
CNN
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Painful Memories for the White House Boys
He’s in his 60’s, married for 42 years, and owns a multimillion-dollar company. He established a scholarship fund at the Arthur Dozier School for Boys where he speaks each year to the students about hard work and a hopeful future.
It was at that same school he learned his trade as an electrician, which turned him into a self-made success story. But, the future wasn’t always so bright for Dick Colon.
Roger Kiser, Dick Colon, Robert Straley and Michael O'McCarthy call themselves the ‘White House Boys’. All served time at the Florida School for Boys during the 1950s and ‘60s.
The men connected on the internet and began sharing stories of horrific physical beatings with long leather straps, reinforced with metal. Often, a large industrial fan was turned on during the beatings to drown out the screams of the boys, as they were tortured.
A makeshift cemetery on the grounds of the school holds thirty-one steel tube crosses. Painted white and unmarked, the men believe the crosses mark the graves of boys who suddenly vanished from the school, never to be seen again.
When boys disappeared from the school, administrators explained it away, said former student Roger Kiser.
They'd say, "Well, he ran away and the swamp got him," Kiser recalled. Or, "The gators got him." Or, 'Water moccasins got him."
It was the ‘White House Boys’ who convinced Florida Governor Charlie Crist to open an investigation into the school. They believe authorities will find the remains of children sent to the Florida School for Boys half a century ago.
Crist wants Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FDLE, to determine if anyone is buried there, whether crimes were committed, and if so, who was responsible.
The investigation will not be an easy one. Locating records and witnesses from fifty years ago will be difficult if not impossible. Many of the administrators and supervisors of the reform school are long dead.
The ‘White House Boys’ live with painful memories and say they want justice. They have waited most of their lives and will wait as long as it takes.
CNN
It was at that same school he learned his trade as an electrician, which turned him into a self-made success story. But, the future wasn’t always so bright for Dick Colon.
Roger Kiser, Dick Colon, Robert Straley and Michael O'McCarthy call themselves the ‘White House Boys’. All served time at the Florida School for Boys during the 1950s and ‘60s.
The men connected on the internet and began sharing stories of horrific physical beatings with long leather straps, reinforced with metal. Often, a large industrial fan was turned on during the beatings to drown out the screams of the boys, as they were tortured.
A makeshift cemetery on the grounds of the school holds thirty-one steel tube crosses. Painted white and unmarked, the men believe the crosses mark the graves of boys who suddenly vanished from the school, never to be seen again.
When boys disappeared from the school, administrators explained it away, said former student Roger Kiser.
They'd say, "Well, he ran away and the swamp got him," Kiser recalled. Or, "The gators got him." Or, 'Water moccasins got him."
It was the ‘White House Boys’ who convinced Florida Governor Charlie Crist to open an investigation into the school. They believe authorities will find the remains of children sent to the Florida School for Boys half a century ago.
Crist wants Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FDLE, to determine if anyone is buried there, whether crimes were committed, and if so, who was responsible.
The investigation will not be an easy one. Locating records and witnesses from fifty years ago will be difficult if not impossible. Many of the administrators and supervisors of the reform school are long dead.
The ‘White House Boys’ live with painful memories and say they want justice. They have waited most of their lives and will wait as long as it takes.
CNN
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Florida’s Own Haut de la Garenne?
Florida law enforcement has begun an investigation into who lies beneath the 32 white crosses at a cemetery near the grounds of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.
The crosses bear no names or dates and the Department of Juvenile Justice has no records that explain who's buried in the cemetery near the 108-year-old reform school.
Governor Charlie Crist has ordered the investigation to find out what is in the graves, identify any remains, and determine whether any crimes occurred.
Young boys who committed crimes were sent to the school and were routinely beaten and abused in the 1950s and '60s at the school.
A group of men who call themselves, The White House Boys, were abused at the school in a building called the “White House”. They called for State and Federal authorities to investigate the graves. The men believe the graves contain the bodies of boys killed at the reform school.
One of those men, Dick Conlon, remembers walking into the school laundry and seeing a young boy tumbling inside a dryer. Afraid for his own safety, Conlon walked away. He says he feels guilty for not helping the boy and recalls that particular boy was never seen again.
The “White House” contained two rooms – one for white inmates and one for blacks – where guards would repeatedly strike children with a long leather-and-metal strap so severely that underwear became imbedded in skin. The vicious beatings occurred for the slightest infractions.
In a rather unusual move, the Department of Juvenile Justice acknowledged the abuse at the school by placing a plaque at the “White House” building.
A former resident of the school, Michael O'McCarthy, said, "Rarely do state or federal governments like to admit that they have committed this type of egregious, destructive kinds of crimes, especially to children."
Governor Crist said, "Justice always cries out for a conclusion and this is no different. If there's an opportunity to find out exactly what happened there, to be able to verify if there were these kinds of horrible atrocities ... we have a duty to do so."
Bryant Middleton, a former inmate was told by a CNN producer that the governor ordered the probe.
"My god! That's remarkable. My god! That's all I ever wanted," he said. "That will begin a lot of the healing for those that survived that school."
"Some of us will never get over the brutality, the sexual assaults and the fear. But this is a major step in the right direction," he said.
Perhaps the States of Jersey can take a lesson from Governor Crist – stop ignoring the likes of Senator Syvret, Lenny Harper, Simon Bellwood and most importantly, the victims of the Jersey abuse scandal!
CNN
Fox News
Special thanks to T&T reader, JG for the tip!
The crosses bear no names or dates and the Department of Juvenile Justice has no records that explain who's buried in the cemetery near the 108-year-old reform school.
Governor Charlie Crist has ordered the investigation to find out what is in the graves, identify any remains, and determine whether any crimes occurred.
Young boys who committed crimes were sent to the school and were routinely beaten and abused in the 1950s and '60s at the school.
A group of men who call themselves, The White House Boys, were abused at the school in a building called the “White House”. They called for State and Federal authorities to investigate the graves. The men believe the graves contain the bodies of boys killed at the reform school.
One of those men, Dick Conlon, remembers walking into the school laundry and seeing a young boy tumbling inside a dryer. Afraid for his own safety, Conlon walked away. He says he feels guilty for not helping the boy and recalls that particular boy was never seen again.
The “White House” contained two rooms – one for white inmates and one for blacks – where guards would repeatedly strike children with a long leather-and-metal strap so severely that underwear became imbedded in skin. The vicious beatings occurred for the slightest infractions.
In a rather unusual move, the Department of Juvenile Justice acknowledged the abuse at the school by placing a plaque at the “White House” building.
A former resident of the school, Michael O'McCarthy, said, "Rarely do state or federal governments like to admit that they have committed this type of egregious, destructive kinds of crimes, especially to children."
Governor Crist said, "Justice always cries out for a conclusion and this is no different. If there's an opportunity to find out exactly what happened there, to be able to verify if there were these kinds of horrible atrocities ... we have a duty to do so."
Bryant Middleton, a former inmate was told by a CNN producer that the governor ordered the probe.
"My god! That's remarkable. My god! That's all I ever wanted," he said. "That will begin a lot of the healing for those that survived that school."
"Some of us will never get over the brutality, the sexual assaults and the fear. But this is a major step in the right direction," he said.
Perhaps the States of Jersey can take a lesson from Governor Crist – stop ignoring the likes of Senator Syvret, Lenny Harper, Simon Bellwood and most importantly, the victims of the Jersey abuse scandal!
CNN
Fox News
Special thanks to T&T reader, JG for the tip!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
