Girls testify on beating, confinement at school
Adam Nossiter
The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution
LUCEDALE, Miss. - During a day when four teenage girls testified about harsh conditions at the Bethel Home for Children, the operator of the home tussled with police and was arrested twice.
The Rev. Herman Fountain was arrested as he tried to stop officers from removing children at the school. Later, after his release, he tried to enter a room in the courthouse where children from the home were being held, and state troopers seized him and led him to jail.
Charges were pending late Monday, said Mark Maples, George County prosecuting attorney.
The four girls testified Monday in juvenile court and described beatings with a long tree branch, forced running of laps at 4 a.m., slapping, hair pulling, and confinement in a windowless room for weeks on end to listen to religious tapes. All are part of the harsh, almost military regimen at the Bethel Home for Children, they said.
Their testimony was part of the state Department of Public Welfare's continuing tussle with the Christian boarding home for troubled children.
On Friday, 64 of the home's estimated 140 boarders were removed. There were reports, but no official confirmation, that up to 60 children fled.
When state and local police tried to remove nine remaining children from the home Monday, the children and some staff members locked themselves in a church on the grounds. After a tense, four-hour standoff, sheriff's deputies broke down the church door, and the children were taken away.
Those children apparently were loyal to Fountain.
The girls who testified Monday were part of the state's effort to ensure that if children younger than 18 are returned to Bethel, they will not get the harsh treatment that has been customary at the school, Maples said.
The four girls' testimony was intended to support earlier accounts of tough conditions at the home, Maples said, including the account that led to Chancery Judge Robert Oswald's order Friday to remove children younger than 18 from the home. The 64 were taken to the state mental hospital in Whitfield, where they were housed separately from patients.
About half, including those who testified Monday on condition they not be returned to Bethel, have been released to their parents. Half remain in state custody; their fate will be decided in hearings this week.
Homes such as Bethel - there are about a dozen in Mississippi - are unregulated and unlicensed by the state. Legislative efforts to pass licensing laws have been defeated in recent years and been opposed by fundamentalist groups.
The girls who testified Monday said they did not want to return to the home.
One Texas girl, 15, claimed she had seen a girl have a "seizure" after receiving a beating. She said she saw the girl fall off her chair onto the floor, hitting her head. The supervisor did not call for medical help, but simplytold the girl to sit up. The same girl told of others who were put in a windowless "revival room" for weeks to listen to religious tapes.
Another 15-year-old from Texas told of being slapped because her supervisor did not like the skirt she was wearing. "Spiritually, it can help a person to a point," she said. "But they're too strict. Their kind of discipline is abuse."