How Could You? Hall of Shame-Elord Revolte case- Child Death UPDATED and SB 1004,SB 1220 and SB 936
This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.
From Miami, Florida, “A 17-year-old boy in the custody of state juvenile justice administrators was grievously injured in a melee at Miami-Dade County’s long troubled lockup, but he was not sent to the hospital until the next day.
By then, it was too late: Elord Revolte, a foster child who had been roaming the streets before his Aug. 28 arrest, became the second child held in a Department of Juvenile Justice detention center to die this year.
Elord’s death is now under investigation by both Miami-Dade Police and the Department of Juvenile Justice, or DJJ.
“It is absolutely heartbreaking to learn of the death of this young man,” DJJ Secretary Christina Daly said in a statement. “In addition to [an] investigation being conducted by Miami-Dade police, the department has initiated our own investigation to ensure that our very high standards of accountability and transparency are met and all proper procedures were followed.”
“At the conclusion of the investigation, we will inform the public of the findings and take all appropriate action to ensure that we prevent any tragedy like this from ever occurring again,” Daly said. “If policies or procedures were not followed, we will hold the appropriate individuals accountable.”
Elord’s death on Monday night renews longstanding questions about the provision of healthcare to children in the custody of the state. In February, 14-year-old Andre Sheffield died at DJJ’s lockup in Brevard County of bacterial meningitis, an inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain. Andre had complained of a headache and stomach pain, soiled himself, limped and fell over in the hours before he died.
Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez was working as an assistant in the office in 2003 when another 17-year-old, Omar Paisley, died a slow, agonizing death from appendicitis while at the Miami lockup, located at 3300 NW 27th Ave. Martinez said he was stunned that another youth may have died at the detention center for lack of proper care.
“They did not have control of the kids if a melee broke out,” said Martinez, whose office had been appointed to represent Elord on armed robbery charges. “And then they didn’t provide medical attention to a kid when he got the heck kicked out of him.”
“I’m in disbelief,” Martinez said. “It’s 12 years after Omar Paisley, and here we are again with a kid who apparently did not get the immediate medical services he should have gotten.”
Elord, sources told the Herald, was born in Haiti. His father brought him to South Florida, sources said, and then essentially abandoned him.
The teen wound up in foster care, and had a handful of contacts with police and youth corrections programs in both Miami and Palm Beach County within the past few years. In May 2014, Elord was issued a “judicial warning” by a Miami Juvenile Court judge after being charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief and trespassing. The following February, he served time in a moderate-risk youth corrections program after being charged with battering a corrections officer.
Elord was a chronic runaway, sources said. On July 15, administrators with the Children’s Home Society, which operates foster homes in Miami, placed Elord with a foster family on Miami Beach. He remained at the home for two days before running. Records show that, on July 21, a Miami judge signed a “pickup order” — a kind of be-on-the-lookout for missing kids — instructing police or social workers to return the youth to state custody, if found.
Elord’s last foster mother said it didn’t appear as if anyone was really looking. Other foster children in her home would report seeing Elord on South Beach while he was missing, and she forwarded the sightings to police, she said.
“The kids would say, ‘I saw Elord on the beach,’” the foster mother said “Nobody really cared.”
All of Elord’s clothes remain stuffed in a black garbage bag in the Miami Beach foster home. The foster mother said she had asked caseworkers to retrieve the teen’s clothing weeks ago. They never did.
He was eventually returned to state custody, but in handcuffs.
On Aug. 28, Miami Beach police officers arrested Elord after he and one or more companions allegedly stole a cellphone. Sources told the Herald that one of the alleged assailants carried a gun. Elord was taken to the lockup, where he remained while prosecutors evaluated whether they wished to file charges against him as an adult, sources said. He made an initial appearance before a judge around Aug. 28. His next court appearance was scheduled for Sept. 17.
Both DJJ and county police say a fight broke out at the lockup sometime Sunday afternoon; a DJJ news release does not specify the time. A release from Miami-Dade police said the fight confrontation involved “approximately 15 to 20 juvenile inmates, and added that “during the altercation Elord was injured.”
An internal DJJ incident report, obtained Tuesday by the Herald, said that Elord “complained that day of soreness to his body.” The incident report was described as a “complaint against staff” and a “medical incident.”
Both agencies say Elord received some kind of medical attention while at the lockup. “Immediately following the incident, the youth was assessed by contracted medical personnel,” DJJ wrote.
The next day, Monday, Elord “was vomiting and complained of nausea,” the incident report said. “He was taken to medical and assessed by the facility nurse, who made a decision to send him out as a precaution.”
In its statement, DJJ said Miami-Dade police had been at the lockup “since early [Tuesday] morning.” The agency also had asked members of its Employee Assistance Program and “mental health counselors to assist staff and the children with this tragedy.”
County police said they do not yet know the cause of the teen’s death, though an autopsy is being completed.
Late Tuesday, a spokeswoman declined to discuss any details of the medical care provided to the teen. “DJJ protocol dictates that if a youth in one of our facilities needs outside medical attention, they get it without hesitation,” said Heather M. DiGiacomo.
That has not always been the case.
Omar Paisley, a 17-year-old from Opa-locka, had been arrested on March 24, 2003, after he cut a neighbor with a soda can during a fight. Beginning around noon on June 7 of that year, he began to complain that he was sick and in pain. For three days, guards and nurses ignored the teen’s pleas for help, and he died amid his own waste in a cell just as guards arrived — handcuffs and leg shackles in hand — to take him to the hospital.
The teen’s death shook the state, causing about 25 departures among DJJ employees, including then-Secretary William G. “Bill” Bankhead, and much of his administrative staff. A Miami grand jury charged two nurses with manslaughter and third-degree murder in Omar’s death, calling the caregivers’ actions callous and “outrageous.” One of the nurses pleaded guilty, years later, to misdemeanor culpable negligence.
Grand jurors also decried “the utter lack of humanity demonstrated” by officers at the lockup the week Omar died, concluding the 226-bed detention center was poorly administered, woefully underfunded and sometimes left in the hands of officers who showed little empathy or regard for the children in their care.
DJJ administrators vowed to “treat every child as if he were your own.” But, in the ensuing years, more children died.
In February, DJJ administrators disciplined six staff members following the death of Andre Sheffield in Brevard. The lockup’s superintendent, Vicki Alves, was suspended for five days for “poor performance” and “negligence.” Her deputy received a written reprimand for poor performance. Three guards who were faulted for ignoring sick-call procedure or failing to seek medical care for a sick detainee were given written reprimands, as well.”
Update: “Kids who may have been offered a bounty — Snickers candy bars, honey buns or Skittles — to carry out the fatal attack. Were they enticed by the very guards who were supposed to protect your son at the Miami-Dade Regional Juvenile Detention Center?
These horrific allegations are being offered as an explanation as to what happened to Elord Revolte, 17, who died in late August after a vicious attack by as many as 20 other detainees at the juvenile lockup.
Elord was a troubled — and troublesome — teen whose father left him at an airport when he took a trip to Haiti. Elord’s cousin tried to care for him for a while, but the teenager ended up in a Miami Beach foster home, from which he ran away.
Were the boys who attacked Elord rewarded with by the guards with sweets? That has yet to be determined. But is the despicable practice routine at juvie hall? A Miami Herald report has determined it is.
Even worse: Elord should have gotten immediate medical care. He didn’t. Staffers waited a full day before calling an ambulance to get Elord to a hospital.
Fortunately, Elord’s death has not been swept under the rug by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice or stalled by an internal investigation that drags on so long only family members clamor for the outcome and those responsible escape punishment.
In this case, DJJ appears to have taken swift, decisive action with the help of Miami-Dade police.
Credit, too, goes to Miami Herald reporter Carol Marbin Miller, who first learned of the alleged connection between food bounties and beatings from Elord’s short-term foster mother. The public defender’s office was alerted in the course of her reporting the story.
Within days, up to 15 young detainees told their attorneys of the practice of inmates being offered honey buns by guards in exchange for hurting or disciplining other detainees.
Last week, five staffers, including three supervisors, were fired for violations linked to Elord’s death that include failing to oversee detained children and falsifying official reports.
There’s likely more fallout on the way: A special team has been dispatched from the DJJ Inspector General’s Office to launch an investigation into widespread allegations that it was common practice for officers to use treats as an inducement for detainees to punish other kids, as lawyers for other children and Elord’s former foster mother have told the Herald.
Elord was booked into the Miami lockup on Aug. 27 on charges of armed robbery. He and an accomplice were accused of a serious crime: stealing a man’s cell phone at gunpoint in Miami Beach.
Some will justify his death by saying he was a bad kid on his way to becoming an adult criminal. That’s a cruel and heartless view. His arrest should not have been a death sentence.
In lockup, kids in Elord’s module allegedly complained to the guards about his bad bahavior. The guards may have let the detainees dispense punishment themselves, it’s alleged.
Acting like boys out of Lord of the Flies, they beat Elord — mercilessly.
The staffers’ firings can’t be the end of it. Elord Revolte died, and police and prosecutors must determine who is criminally responsible.”
Update 2: “The first steps in a series of reforms designed to increase oversight and accountability in state prison and juvenile justice facilities were passed Tuesday by a key committee of the Florida Senate.
The Senate Criminal Justice Committee unanimously approved a series of bills sponsored by Sen. Jeff Brandes, a Republican from St. Petersburg who has declared his intention to overhaul outdated criminal justice policies.
The move came in the wake of Fight Club, a Miami Herald investigation spurred by the death of a 17-year-old foster child at the Miami-Dade juvenile lockup. Elord Revolte died after he was suddenly attacked by a dozen kicking, punching juvenile detainees. No one was charged, although the assault erupted in front of video cameras. Two of the detained boys said the onslaught was instigated by a guard, who was offended that Elord had spoken to him disrespectfully.
Over nearly two years, Herald reporters examined that death and others, and documented the sexual exploitation of youthful detainees, medical neglect and abusive treatment by underpaid staffers, who sometimes encouraged youths to fight each other in exchange for food rewards.
“Everything points to that we are going to get meaningful reform done,’’ Brandes said after the meeting. “There’s a new vision and an understanding we can’t stay where we are — both fiscally and outcome-based.”
He was confident the reforms could start this year and he said he has sensed “excitement among members on the Senate side and amongst Republican members of the House.”
As chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee, he expects to wrap the reforms together into a larger bill as early as next week and direct state money into ensuring the changes are implemented.
Many of the reforms were inspired not only by Fight Club but by a separate Herald investigative series, Cruel and Unusual. That investigation highlighted inmate abuse and management failures at the Department of Corrections, including many questionable deaths.
Brandes said the Senate’s legislation will produce more oversight of the private companies that operate the 53 residential facilities for juvenile delinquents under contract with DJJ.
“We’re talking about more reporting. We’re creating public advocates in those facilities to increase monitoring,’’ Brandes said. “We are going to put cameras in these facilities and are going to provide pay raises so that we can attract higher-quality individuals who supervise these kids.”
Brandes said DJJ and FDC have been supportive of the changes and he expects to include in the budget money for DJJ to install two-way communications cameras in the public areas of the residential programs to allow for constant monitoring and feedback, he said.
“They’ll be able to view incidences in real time in their most high-risk facilities — not have to go to those facilities and pick up the tape,’’ he said. “They’ll also be able to press a button and interact immediately in high-risk situations.”
When staff is aware they are being watched and there is enhanced accountability, Brandes predicts, “there will be a change in behavior.”
In addition, he said there will be pay raises for officers at juvenile justice facilities.
Among the measures passed Tuesday is an effort to increase oversight at the privately run juvenile detention facilities operated in Florida. SB 1004 would require the DJJ to allow all legislators, public defenders and members of the governor’s agencies to make surprise visits to any state juvenile detention facilities. It would also stipulate that DJJ “may not unreasonably withhold access to reporters or writers in the media space.”
Another bill would expand the state’s supervised community release program for inmates at the end of their sentences to help them better transition back into their communities. SB 1208 would allow the Department of Corrections to choose inmates who could benefit from transition efforts by helping get them into work release programs, on electronic monitors and into community housing during the last 90 days of their sentence.
“This allows us to have that decompression period back into society,’’ Brandes explained. “This is my attempt to stabilize individuals in that regard.”
In an effort to create an organized public advocate for the prison and juvenile justice system, SB 1208 creates a new Correctional Oversight Council, a nine-member board of volunteers who would evaluate adult prisons and DJJ detention facilities, conduct announced and unannounced inspections and identify problem facilities.
The goal is to create experts who “understand at a deeper level and report that back up,’’ Brandes said.
Under SB 1220, officers who interrogate inmates after an adverse incident would have to record the interview with video or audio equipment.
“It’s 2018 and it’s my belief we should videotape or audiotape certain custodial interrogations,’’ Brandes said. This “basket of policies will hopefully change the trajectory” of the agency, he added.
These are not the only criminal justice proposals under consideration.
Sen. Randolph Bracy, D-Orlando, the chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, has proposed increasing the age at which a youth may be prosecuted as an adult. Under his bill, SB 936, the age at which a child can be prosecuted as an adult would increase from 14 or 15 to 16 or 17. The measure would also limit the offenses that qualify a child to be prosecuted as an adult. It has not yet had a hearing.”
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