Third suit claims child hurt at lockup

LITTLE ROCK — A third lawsuit accuses the firm that manages most of Arkansas’ youth lockups of harming a child at its Lewisville facility in 2019, through disciplinary actions such as shackling and throwing children into walls and floors.

Youth Opportunity Investments is the first defendant listed in the lawsuit filed Monday in Ouachita County Circuit Court.

The Indiana firm manages three lockups for young offenders in Arkansas through a contract with the state Department of Human Services, which ends this month.

The plaintiff is Christian Dickson, whose stay at the Lewisville Treatment Center included July through September last year. The suit does not specify his age, but does say he was a minor at the time.

The suit also names “Alisha Johnson,” a direct care worker with Youth Opportunity Investments; Jim Hill, the firm’s president; and John Does 1 through 5, whose identities aren’t known but “either provided or were supposed to provide care and services … or who are directly or vicariously liable for the injuries of Christian Dickson.”

“These ‘disciplinary’ actions included, but are not limited to, shackling the juveniles, for long periods of time; forcefully throwing and/or taking down the juveniles into walls and onto the floors; having physical force used against them; being forced to sleep in shackles; being locked in a room for long periods of time, etc,” the lawsuit reads. “Such action caused the juveniles, including Christian Dickson, to have pain, suffering, depression, being scared, and other medical injuries.”

The lawsuit is similar to two others filed in Pulaski and Jefferson counties in January on behalf of two mothers whose sons stayed at the facility for periods that included July and August last year. Jeff Priebe, an attorney with the firm Rainwater, Holt & Sexton, filed all three civil claims.

The lawsuits were filed after an August incident at the Lewisville facility during which employees are accused of zip-tying children overnight, slamming them into walls, giving them Benadryl when they needed mental health care and forcing them to urinate in Gatorade bottles or foam cups, according to a report at the time from Brooke Digby, the state’s youth ombudsman.

Juvenile-court judges send youngsters to lockups for offenses such as theft, assault and truancy.

The state in September opened an investigation into the Lewisville incident. At least two workers later were fired and a third was transferred to another Youth Opportunity facility in Texas.

“These defendants need to answer for what happened to these innocent children,” Priebe said Tuesday.

Gary Sallee, an attorney and spokesman for Youth Opportunity, did not return requests for comment by late Tuesday. When the newspaper initially reported on Digby’s email, Sallee said: “there has been no finding of abuse by any of these employees.”

This latest lawsuit says the defendants were negligent in failing to provide a safe environment and proper training and supervision for staff members. It also says defendants failed to protect children in their care from criminal acts.

Allegations also included what the lawsuit termed “a count of battery,” citing an incident in which Dickson was thrown to the ground and forcibly restrained, suffering “mental and physical injury.”

The plaintiff’s requests include compensation for injuries and damages, costs and attorney’s fees, punitive damages and coverage of past and future medical expenses.

All the children at Lewisville have since been moved to other facilities; the 32-bed lockup sits empty.

Youth Opportunity ended its contract with the state earlier than expected and will leave control of its three remaining facilities at Dermott, Harrisburg and Mansfield to Rite of Passage, a Nevada company, on July 1.

Rite of Passage hopes to turn the Lewisville campus into a substance-abuse treatment facility for kids.

“Even though it’s shut down, we’re still going to continue because we believe that these issues need to see the light of day,” Priebe said.

“Even though it’s shut down, we’re still going to continue because we believe that these issues need to see the light of day.” — Jeff Priebe, attorney with the firm Rainwater, Holt & Sexton