The horrors inside a state-run juvenile detention center will never leave one Tri-Cities man.
P.B. saw one boy brutally beaten and then begging guards for help and other teens forced to exercise until they vomited. He also recalls a persistent rumor about a guard who had sex with offenders.
Now, he’s coming forward to say he was raped, joining more than 300 former inmates from across Washington state who are suing, claiming they were sexually abused while incarcerated at Washington’s juvenile detention centers.
“These are our most vulnerable kids and they needed rehabilitation and unfortunately, they got the opposite,” said Vanessa Firnhaber Oslund, an attorney with the Seattle law firm Bergman Oslund Udo Little.
The firm has filed two lawsuits so far. Ten Tri-Cities residents are named as part of the suits.
P.B., who isn’t being named under a Herald policy not to name people who report being sexually assaulted, is one of the teens who says he was targeted by guards, counselors, medical staff and others at state facilities including Maple Lane School, Echo Glen Children’s Center, Green Hill School and Naselle Youth Camp.
The lawsuits say the abuse dates back to the 1950s and as recently as the 2020s and allege the offenders were raped, sodomized, molested and manipulated.
“What’s really interesting to me and frankly really disturbing is that most of these cases are from the last 20 years,” said Firnhaber Oslund, adding that employee background screening already had been developed that should have caught potential predatory employees.
“The state knew better and it should have done better,” she said.
She claims the state did little screening of employees and allowed people convicted of crimes direct access to teens who couldn’t escape. The policies often allowed these guards to isolate the teens behind closed doors with the blinds down.
“You have a climate where the kids are perfect victims,” she said.
A change in the statute of limitations for these claims has led to an increase in the number filed against the Department of Youth, Children and Families, which runs the juvenile rehabilitation system, said Nancy Gutierrez, the department’s communication administrator.
“DCYF takes swift action to protect young people in our care when complaints of sexual abuse are made. We encourage young people to report sexual abuse. We strive to offer multiple ways for young people to make those reports in a way that feels safe to them. We try to make information broadly available, including posters and brochures with the CPS hotline,” the department said in a statement.
She said the department takes the reports seriously and forwards all allegations to police and child protection services.
“When we discover staff misconduct, we act in a swift manner to address any bad actors,” the statement said.
Joining a gang
For much of his youth, P.B. was a good child who followed the rules. He was even a Boy Scout.
But he described his family as not emotionally close, so he found a different one — a gang — after moving to a Kennewick apartment complex.
“I saw all those people as more of a family because they showed that they cared,” he said. “I felt accepted there more.”
The youngest in his family, P.B. often ran away from home to spend time with fellow gang members.
His first criminal charges came when he was 13 and broke into a West Richland home with another teen. He began racking up crimes quickly — assault, theft, illegally possessing guns and drug-related charges, according to court documents.
By the time, he was 14, he was facing a lengthy sentence for threatening skaters using a baseball bat, he said. His attorney was attempting to work out an agreement for him when he gave a gun to another teen to sell.
He was sentenced to Maple Lane School in Centralia, more than 240 miles away from anyone he knew.
Maple Lane School
Maple Lane School has a more than 100-year history as a place where delinquent teens were sent, according to Thurston Talk, an online news source. It was shut town as a juvenile facility in 2011, only to reopen as a home for adults who need competency restoration.
When P.B. arrived, he said he nearly immediately discovered that it was a dark and violent place.
“I knew there was something wrong. This place was definitely not meant for someone like me,” he said.
When he was in the intake cottage, he and other teens were forced to work out until they threw up. He remembered drinking as much water as he could so he would vomit sooner.
He saw offenders committing sexual abuse against other young offenders inside locker rooms, and guards would walk through and pretend not to see.
One act of violence that stuck with him was a sex offender who was beaten daily by the other people in the facility. At one point, the boy was crawling on his stomach begging the guards for help. When he grabbed one of the guard’s legs, the boy was kicked away, he said.
All that time, he was hundreds of miles from his family and they couldn’t come see him. He kept wishing some adult would step in and help him.
“I felt really lost,” he said. “I remember day for day being in there.”
Sexual assaults
At Maple Lane, P.B. heard about a 23-year-old security guard who would “have sex” with the teens. The other teens frequently shared stories about being with her.
While he can’t remember her name, he remembers what she did, the court documents said.
One night, she walked with him to the bathroom, followed him inside and raped him, according to court documents.
She told him that if he told anyone he wouldn’t be able to get into a group home he was hoping for.
He followed her instructions because he was worried about being denied the placement.
“I never really thought too much about (the rape),” he said years later. “I never talked to my wife about it. I always kept it a secret. I never saw it as a rape because she was female and I was a male.”
It was only later that he started to realize that she had used her power over him to do what she wanted. He believes the rape and the abuse he witnessed at the school had a lasting impact on him.
“I had feelings for this adult that was supposed to be keeping me safe. She was supposed to be a mentor, not a partner,” he said.
The guard was not identified in court documents, and P.B. believes she was later caught raping another teen and fired.
Substance abuse, homelessness
Since leaving the juvenile system , P.B. has had just some misdemeanor offenses. But he continues to struggle with substance use and homelessness.
He now has a child of his own and three others by marriage. He told the Herald that the idea that they could go through a similar experience is frightening.
“I still see that kid’s face pleading to the officer,” he said. “I still have a lot of images from being there. …. They’re still fresh today.”
He joined the lawsuit with the hope that it will make Washington more careful about who they have working in juvenile facilities.
“It’s pretty obvious that they hire just anyone to watch over our kids,” he said. “I pray that no kid has to experience what I did.”
