Missing tapes hinder juvenile center probe
Associated PressThe lost surveillance camera footage could have shown whether a male inmate was raped.
Published November 12, 2005
TALLAHASSEE - An investigation into missing surveillance tapes at a Department of Juvenile Justice detention center has some critics suggesting there is a pattern of coverups.
The tapes were discovered missing as police began investigating the alleged rape of a severely retarded 15-year-old male.
It's not the first time critical evidence was unavailable during similar investigations.
Surveillance tapes also were missing, nonexistent or of such poor quality as to be useless after the deaths of three youths in custody: Omar Paisley, Daniel Matthews and Shawn Smith.
Cathy Corry, a Clearwater juvenile justice watchdog, said she has received dozens of complaints from parents that officials could not confirm abuse allegations against their children because surveillance equipment didn't work.
"I got pretty sick of hearing that the videotape was lost, or the videotape didn't exist, or (the) area in question wasn't covered by the videotape," Corry told the Miami Herald.
In the latest case, the department's inspector general is investigating a break-in into the cabinet where tapes are stored. Detention center superintendent Linda Edwards-Ellis was aware of the break-in, but didn't report it or start an investigation, according to the report. She was fired this week.
Tom Denham, a department spokesman, said the agency is "attempting to move to more modern video systems that don't require tapes. We can only do that as funding permits."
Denham said tapes have helped prosecutors in other cases. "It's not like every time we have an incident the tapes go missing."
Paisley, 17, died of a ruptured appendix in June 2003 at the Miami-Dade Juvenile Detention Center. He had pleaded for medical attention for three days. The grand jury investigating the death said it "longed for" a recording of the days leading to the death, but most of the 10-year-old video cameras in the facility didn't work.
There were no tapes available after Smith, 13, hanged himself in a Volusia County center in 2001. Guards were supposed to be closely watching the youth.
Matthews, 17, died in May 2003 in a fight with another detainee in Pinellas County. Although a video camera was running at the time, it did not provide a clear image of what happened, the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office said.