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Researchers from the University of South Florida have identified more than 100 unmarked grave sites on the property of the state-owned school, which was closed in 2011 after decades of allegations that it routinely tortured boys who were sent there, WFLA News reported.

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

Tierra Blanca.

For them that don't know, TB is one of the many still operating hellcamps which operate via a legal dodge that allows them to run without oversight or regulation, therefore opening the door to many various abuses, and usually in remote, isolated areas that makes it easy to cover them up.

Most of these places have a sort of nod-and-wink collusion with local authorities, something brought to like with the Kids-for-Cash scandal in PA, but never fully delved into on a wider scale, mostly because the folks who'd be responsible for investigating such things usually *ARE* the freakin perps, which is problematic of itself.

Anyhows, TB's been watchlisted since late 2004 by our people, and 2005 by the State of New Mexico, but the remoteness of the location allows them to clean house and cover up when the authorities come calling, not to mention that local collusion made any real investigation quite difficult, and one of their standard tricks was to send their captives out into the damn boonies when investigators came calling so they couldn't be interviewed - one of them some time ago managed to steal a satphone and called the local law, who dismissed his claims (although they were documented, a factor that'll come into play soon enough) and pitched him right back in, which is why you NEVER call the damn locals when bailing a hellcamp, just so you know.

The thing that really drew attention was a vehicle accident back in September which resulted in a fatality, and none of the explainations given from witnesses and personnel matched up and the whole matter smelled a little fishy, which drew the attention of the STATE police, and Pegasus (a group similar to ours) on top of it.

Once they had sufficient cause to move on it, the State boys descended on the place, and they weren't having any of that send the boys to the backwoods bullshit, and when the conduct of the staff came across as suspicious, and on the heels of all them unexplained bodies in unmarked graves turning up at Dozier, they sent up the Amber Alert flag - whether this was an overreaction or not is for the officials to determine but I am of the mind it was not just the right thing to do, in that situation it was the ONLY thing to do, because the legal dodges and lack of legal protections for youth really gave them no alternative but to pull the trigger on AA, or just let the abuse go on.

As it stands, they're all accounted for, and the State boys would really, really like to have a little chat with the places owner - which means it's probably curtains for this place, till it pops up again somewhere else with the same creeps running it and a different nameplate plastered on, as they are wont to do since the lack of legal protections for youth means it's damn hard to actually prosecute bastards like these.

News coverage of the matter is pretty halfassed overall, but KASA is prolly best source for now.
http://www.kasa.com/news/crime/youth-ranch-challenges-abuse-claims
http://www.kasa.com/news/local/ranch-boys-ok-police-cancel-amber-alert

Even from THAT little bit, the whole story comes off pretty fishy.

Oh, and for those not in the loop about Dozier and the "white house boys", some background.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/florida-exhume-graves-dozier-
school-boys-article-1.1419154

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Researchers from the University of South Florida have identified more than 100 unmarked grave sites on the property of the state-owned school, which was closed in 2011 after decades of allegations that it routinely tortured boys who were sent there, WFLA News reported.

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Not the only hellcamp with unmarked graves surrounding it, but for whatever reason currently the only one undergoing any real investigation - SOP for Dozier was for witnesses or victims of abuse that the authorities wanted to speak with to "run away" or otherwise suddenly dissappear, and the NM State Police might have thought they were facing a similar problem.

I don't really have my hands in this one so much, which means whatever info I have is coming secondhand from Justin, but any way you slice it, this is a mess.

-Frem

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:
I read this story on 2 different days. It was kinda circular:
The cops wanna talk to the missing kids; but TB's attorney keeps
tellin' em the kids are with their parents. Duh.

And I Really Got It that this is one of those places Frem's been
warning us about for so long.

I dunno if we had places like this when I was a kid ('50's). I
suspect so. In fact, I can well imagine that most societies have a
lot of throw-away kids who end up in such places. So ... do we
actually have more Hell Camps for kids nowadays ... or are we just
a little better informed on it?

Thanks, Frem.

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:
I read this story on 2 different days. It was kinda circular:
The cops wanna talk to the missing kids; but TB's attorney keeps
tellin' em the kids are with their parents. Duh.

And I Really Got It that this is one of those places Frem's been
warning us about for so long.

I dunno if we had places like this when I was a kid ('50's). I
suspect so. In fact, I can well imagine that most societies have a
lot of throw-away kids who end up in such places. So ... do we
actually have more Hell Camps for kids nowadays ... or are we just
a little better informed on it?

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Originally posted by Oonjerah:

We can't claim that we invented it. We're not the 1st or the worst.

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ETA:
Yeah, I know. What I'm talking is not quite the same as what You are
saying, Frem. You are talking Hell Camps created on purpose for profit
by evil persons. I'm talking about a condition that I see in nearly all
societies, but particularly urban ones.

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Defending the state’s use of the Amber Alert, Governor Martinez gave an emotional response to the media on Monday, underscoring the state's response in the search for the nine teens that went missing from the ranch in southwest New Mexico on Friday.

"Absolutely I stand behind this alert, I will never apologize,” said Governor Martinez. “We felt they were in imminent danger because of what was discovered within those buildings in Tierra Blanca.”

In her address, Governor Martinez said that evidence was collected Friday in relation to recent allegations
that kids may have been abused at the ranch over the past few years.

“The search warrant revealed evidence that I cannot tell you precisely what it was but did corroborate some of the allegations of some of those boys,” said Governor Martinez.

When that search happened, New Mexico State Police say none of the teens were on the property, something the Governor says was troubling.

“They (the ranch) had had contact with Children Youth and Families Department the day before and all of the sudden all of the boys are being returned home,” said Governor Martinez.

The attorney for ranch owner Scott Chandler, Pete Domenici Jr. insisted over the weekend that the boys were on a wilderness trip.

“They've been on many, many of these similar kinds of trips that have been safe productive, they've allowed continuity, so there's nothing unusual about this,” said Domenici Jr.

However, Martinez says the ranch owner Chandler drove the boys home across multiple states.

“When they're being delivered home, they're not on a pre-planned wilderness program,” said Martinez. “For him to have stayed put and let police and social workers do their job would have been much better than to go around amongst three states dropping off children.”

As the investigation continues, New Mexico State Police still haven't talked to Chandler.

“We're still looking for him, my understanding is that no one has spoken to him as yet, he's still a person of interest and they're still a lookout for him,” said Governor Martinez.

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Originally posted by Geezer:
What's interesting, and kind'a sad, is that based on the cites Frem provided, apparently most kids in these camps are put there by their parents, who are the ones who end up actually paying the camp operators for this abuse.

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Connor Griffoul ran away from Tierra Blanca in 2008.

When a State Police officer found him, he noted in his report that Connor was in handcuffs and in possession of a stolen phone that Connor had used to call for help.

Instead of taking Connor to safety, that State Police officer returned Connor to the Tierra Blanca Ranch.

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Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

I wouldn't put it all on the Conservative end - while it's true there's prettymuch no "Liberal" folk involved...

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some of these places have the front, the "nice" camp held out front where they never put the squeeze down too hard, and a "black" site nearby where they send kids who don't play along with their abusive bullshit (which also includes abusing other kids, most of the time, just so you know) and some of em don't come back.

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The program used a remote “satellite” ranch in the Sacramento Mountains in Otero County as a punishment camp where boys lived on short rations (rice and beans), worked most of the day building fence lines and were forced to run when not working.
While being held at the satellite ranch for months, the boys there had little or no contact with teachers, no medical care, and considered themselves “slave labor” for ranch owner Scott Chandler.

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And I would add, I think, really listening to the story leading up to this about the private for-profit centers elsewhere, it’s really important, I think, for us as a country, I think, for your listeners, to know that while we can talk about what happens in private centers, some of which, frankly, are not-for-profit, the same kinds of abuses can occur in state-run facilities, as well.

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In Pennsylvania, I think that by exposing what happened with the judges scandal, we’ve also had an opportunity to achieve great reforms. We have really changed statutory policies in Pennsylvania with respect to children’s right to counsel, with their ability to obtain appointed counsel on their own, presuming that they in fact don’t have financial resources to do that. We have eliminated, for the most part, shackling in Pennsylvania courtrooms. We have provided and required that judges give a statement of reasons. So when judges in Pennsylvania commit children to public or private-run centers, they need to have an explanation for why they’re doing that. And I think the kinds of stories that we’re hearing about what might be happening in Florida or California, for example, we don’t have the same kinds of protections. We don’t have the same kind of transparency in place.

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I think that we have achieved remarkable progress. I think that the settlements, I think that the convictions of the two judges and their current incarceration are all putting pieces of the puzzle together. But I think—again, I think as the story leading up to our conversation this morning illustrates, there’s much more to be done across the country. This is a national story. It’s still a national problem.

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AMY GOODMAN: What’s happened to those prisons for kids in Pennsylvania, the ones that were involved with bribing the judges who are now in jail?

MARSHA LEVICK: They continue to operate. And they—the litigation was not about conditions within these facilities. They continue to bribe—to provide services. This was really about—really, primarily, the action of the judges, their behavior in the courtroom, and how they were so willing to remove children from their homes with really very little due process and very little regard for their rights or interests.

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