Boot Camp Operator Found Guilty of Manslaughter
Posted on Tue Jan 04, 2005 at 12:12:43 PM EST
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by TChris
Boot camps for unruly juveniles have been popular with the "harsh treatment builds character" crowd, but the story of Anthony Haynes reveals the potential for abuse that inheres in the "tough love" philosophy.
Anthony Haynes was a troubled overweight youth, and his mother sought out Long's program because she said she was desperate to find ways to cope with the child. While sitting in a disciplinary line in the July heat, Haynes began acting erratically, eating dirt and possibly hallucinating.
A counselor and several youths took him to a hotel and placed him, unconscious, in a shower bath, where he inhaled water. Then, rather than call for medical help, they took him back to the camp, where he died despite attempts to resuscitate him.
Charles Long, who operated the Arizona camp, was convicted Monday of reckless manslaughter in the 14-year-old boy's death. He had been charged with the more serious offense of second degree murder.
Long also was found guilty of aggravated assault for threatening another youth with a knife. ... Long held a knife to the chest of a camper named Nicholas Conner and threatened to "gut him like a fish."
The jury deadlocked on eight counts of child abuse related to other campers who were reportedly forced to sit in the sun without adequate water as discipline.
Jurors made clear their displeasure with the testimony that Long's wife gave in support of her husband. Proposed cross-examination questions that jurors submitted to the judge included whether Long's wife "realized how foolish she looked in contradicting other testimony and how she would like it if someone forcibly shaved her head, as was done to problem cadets in Long's programs."
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