New report details 'shocking' prank at Mass. special needs school

A prankster makes a late-night phone call to a Stoughton group home for special needs students.

Posing as a school official, the caller tells employees to awaken two residents, ages 16 and 19, and administer painful electric skin shocks as punishment for their behavior earlier in the evening.

The calls, by a former resident of the group home between 2 a.m. and 4:45 a.m. on Aug. 26, result in the students receiving multiple two-second skin shocks n 77 to one of the students, and 29 to another. Both are initially awoken as skin shocks are first administered. At another point, both are pinned down in a four-point restraint, restricting movement of their limbs.

The incident is detailed in a report released Wednesday by the state Department of Early Education and Care, and has top Beacon Hill officials renewing calls for an end to the use of skin shocks and other forms of punishment at the Canton-based Judge Rotenberg Education Center.

``To have someone take a phone call and then go shock people is just outrageous, it's criminal,'' said Senate President Therese Murray, a Plymouth Democrat who backs a bill curbing the use of so-called aversive therapy. The bill comes up for a legislative hearing on Jan. 16.

Murray also faulted the Patrick administration for the long time lag in disclosing the incident.

``We have investigators within our agencies that should have been on this,'' Murray said. ``We certainly should have been told about it.''

According to the report, as the two students protested that they were innocent and howled in pain, other student residents awoke in the night and shouted in protest, the report said. They told staff members the calls were a prank, but were told to go back to bed.

The two students complained they were in pain and asked to see a nurse, to no immediate avail. One, who screamed that his leg was ``killing him,'' was found during a hospital examination the next day to have first-degree burn from the skin shocks. The other told staff members his blood pressure was racing and he felt as though he was about to have a stroke.

The report concludes that one employee ``was physically abusive toward residents,'' while six others were negligent in their duties.

The state's Disabled Persons Protection Committee is investigating a complaint that a third victim n an adult nalso received unnecessary shock treatments after the prank calls.

State Department of Mental Retardation Commission Elin Howe did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Murray and other lawmakers have sought to be ban skin shocks in the past, but Rotenberg officials have successfully argued that the treatment is needed in extreme cases. School founder Dr. Matthew Israel did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

``People have been trying to stop this place for 20 years,'' said Sen. Brian Joyce, a Milton Democrat who district includes the school's main campus in Canton. ``Massachusetts, as far as I know, is the only place in the country that allows this barbaric practice.''

The incident is under investigation by Stoughton police, the state Department of Social Services, and the Disabled Persons Protection Commission.

State officials credited school officials with immediately reporting the prank once it was discovered.

``The Judge Rotenberg Center did exactly what it was supposed to do,'' said Cindy Campbell, spokeswoman for the Department of Early Education and Care. ``They self-reported to the authorities promptly after the incident.''

Nearly 75 percent of the center's 230 residents are subject to jolts of electricity to the skin or food deprivation if they act inappropriately.

The school treats people with a wide variety of behavior problems, including autistic-like students who have aggressive, self-injurious or destructive behaviors and high-functioning students with psychiatric or emotional problems, according to a description posted on its Web site.

``''Eight states (including Massachusetts) send children to the center, which is often seen as the last resort for children with severe emotional or behavior problems.

The center receives $220,000 per child in tuition from states and school districts, and collects $56 million in yearly revenues; Israel collects an annual salary of $400,000.

In addition to its Canton campus, the Rotenberg Center has group homes in Attleboro, Mansfield, Rehoboth, Norton, Randolph, Stoughton and Holbrook.

Tom Benner may be reached at tbenner@ledger.com.

The Patriot Ledger