Tape leaves questions intogirl's death at center

[Guest guest]

Houston Chronicle

6/07/03

Restraint video released / Tape leaves questions intogirl's death at center

By TERRY KLIEWER

Staff

KATY - The release Friday of a videotape of a physical restraint episode in

which a 14-year-old youth center resident died last fall appears to leave

unanswered questions about how the tragedy happened.

The three-minute tape, recorded by the in-house surveillance system at Krause

Children's Residential Treatment Center, also challenges assertions made by

center officials in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 12 tragedy.

The tape indicates that Mendoza did not undergo a " textbook " restraint ,

as initially claimed by officials of Lutheran Social Services of the South, the

Austin-based not-for-profit organization that owns the Krause Center.

Nor was Mendoza the subject of a strict " basket-hold restraint " - a particular

physical-control technique favored by some experts for such custodial-care

settings.

Sam Sipes, chief operating officer for Lutheran Social Services, said he and

other charity officers, including chief executive officer Kurt Senske, made

their statements last fall based on statements by staffers present during the

restraint .

" We were at a disadvantage in not having seen the (surveillance) tape

ourselves, " Sipes said at an afternoon news conference near Katy.

He explained that Katy police confiscated the original tape as evidence before

Lutheran Social Services officials could view it.

Although a County Medical Examiner's ruling pointed to the death as a

homicide, a Fort Bend County grand jury in March no-billed the four staff

members involved in the restraint .

All four were suspended with pay for the first few months after the incident,

and they remain on leave without pay until Lutheran Social Services concludes

its own review, Sipes said.

The incident raised questions about how violent residents should be controlled

and whether restraints should be used at all.

Lutheran's news conference came in response to the tape's release Friday by the

Katy Police Department. The police, in turn, were responding to an open-records

request by the Chronicle and other media.

The police department's release also prompted Lutheran Social Services officials

to release their own " version " of the tape, which differed slightly from the

police copy.

Sipes told reporters that a " few frames " - about 30 seconds that somehow were

left out of the tape from Katy police - were restored by Lutheran Social

Services technicians for the version he presented.

The segment in question shows that the restraint applied to Mendoza was

progressive - in other words, that first two, then three, and finally four

Krause Center staffers participated.

The police tape, by contrast, jumps from a pre-restraint segment, in which

Mendoza is shown alone in a Krause Center " timeout " room, directly into another

segment that shows three staffers actively restraining her and one looking on.

The apparently more complete Lutheran Social Services tape starts with Mendoza

in a " timeout " room at the Krause Center, where she had been sent just moments

earlier because of allegedly violent behavior toward a staff member.

The tape next shows her turning suddenly toward the door from her kneeling

position in the empty room, and quickly being subdued in a prone position on a

matted floor by one staffer who holds her arms near her head and another who

holds her legs at the ankles.

A few moments later, as Mendoza appears to continue to struggle, a third staffer

enters the room and sprawls face-up across her lower trunk area. Sipes said the

maneuver is justified when the subject is kicking and about to break free: " It

controls the movement of their legs. "

As the three staffers maintain their positions, a fourth staffer enters the room

as an observer. When Mendoza appears to relax, all four exit and leave her lying

prone on the mat.

After an interlude of several seconds on the tape - which amounted to about 7

minutes by the clock, Sipes said - some of the staffers re-enter the room to

check on Mendoza, who has not moved from her prone position during that time.

The remainder of the tape shows Krause Center personnel and then emergency

medical service technicians attempting to revive the girl.

The medical examiner ruled the official cause of death was " mechanical

asphyxiation. "

Sipes maintained that the tape does not show that the technique used on Mendoza

was " flawed " or improperly performed, as had been speculated by some in the

aftermath of the incident.

He said most restraint experts advocate the participation of two or more

staffers in a restraint . Nothing in the tape suggests anything was done wrong,

he added.

But the tape appears to demonstrate that the staffers did not heed very strictly

the guidelines that experts usually attach to the use of a " basket-hold

restraint . "

Such a restraint typically involves one staffer taking hold from behind of the

subject's arms by the wrists, then crossing them across the subject's torso -

the lower, the better.

Meanwhile, another staffer is to grab the subject's legs at knee-level or higher

and assist in a slow controlled fall by all three - staffers and subject - onto

the floor.

Once on the floor, the staffers are to roll the subject onto his or her side,

all the while encouraging the subject to stop resisting. As soon as resistance

ceases, the restraint is supposed to be released.

The tape shows Mendoza on her side at one point, but no one is directly behind

her. The action of the third staffer, who lay across Mendoza's midsection to

restrain her legs, would not be considered part of conventional " basket-hold "

technique, according to experts who previously talked with the Chronicle about

the case.

The tape shown to reporters Friday has a jerky quality because it is composed of

frames taken about every 7 seconds by the surveillance camera nearest to where

the restraint occurred.

Sipes could not explain why the copy of the tape released by police lacked the

short initial segment that was available from the original, which they had

seized the day of the incident.

He doubted the discrepancy was intentional but noted that " it makes it appear

all three (staffers) piled on (the prone Mendoza) at once. "

Katy Police Chief Buddy Frazier could not account for the discrepancy, but said

it was not central to his conclusion that " something was done to that child that

should not have been done. "

Sipes said his organization has made key changes in the wake of the tragedy,

including a move to a less physically confrontational method.

Earlier this year, Mendoza's death was the topic for a civil lawsuit against

Lutheran Social Services by her family. The suit was settled out of court on

terms that Sipes would not disclose.