Democrats pressure SD governor after children die in state custody

Under GOP cover South Dakota is a state where STDs and unchecked diseases like measles are free to run rampant.

The plan attempts to reduce South Dakota's startlingly high rate of adolescents who are committed to the care of the Department of Corrections by focusing on the most dangerous offenders and pushing lower-risk juveniles into community-based treatments. Juveniles committed to state care live in various settings, from the state's STAR academy campus to private, in-patient treatment programs. The measure would encourage the courts to keep lower-risk offenders at home to receive out-patient treatment for such things as addiction and mental health issues.

"This is a big deal," said Sen. Billie Sutton, a Democrat from Burke who was part of a panel that studied the issue and recommended the changes. "This is a big deal for South Dakota, and it's a big deal for the kids of South Dakota." The body of evidence on successfully rehabilitating juvenile offenders emphasizes keeping adolescents with their families and in their schools, but a state panel report released last month found that, statewide, courts at times place juveniles in expensive state-sponsored care simply because community-based options aren't available. [Associated Press]

This case stank from the very beginning.

Let [me] explain the "wooden box", they have a wooden box in place that children can drop a note into if they [feel] they are being [mistreated]. Can you imagine a scared child even considering putting a note in that box when all they want to do is to do what [they're] told so can [they can] go home. Brady would tell me that all the time. Mine and Brady's final visit was close to two hours at Custer Regional Hospital. Brady was very coherent but VERY yellow! He had a two inch cut on top of his head and I asked him about it and he stated that they accidentally nicked his head when they were shaving the boys heads.

Brady got up and walked to bathroom on his own (which outside of room and down the hall). The doctor told us he had a blockage in the vein that goes to the liver and they didn't have the equipment there to take care of this so they were going to fly him to Sioux Falls. Please keep in mind while all this is going on there at least five men from STAR behind a curtain and whispering with the doctor and amongst themselves. The doctor did NOT once tell me that this was life threatening for I would have NOT left Brady!!! After pushing for medical records I find out that Brady was going into septic shock before they loaded him on the plane, so WHY did they continue that flight??? [Dawn Van Ballegooyen, some edits.]

The Division of Criminal Investigation is apparently still reviewing procedures at a Black Hills 'boot camp' after another child died while in the custody of South Dakota 'Corrections.' Brady Folkens of Brookings was 17.

Folkens’ mother, Dawn Van Ballegooyen, said she went to Custer to visit him Saturday and was told he was ill when she arrived. She talked to her son, who said he had been sick for a few days and had thrown up. Medical staff told her he had liver blockage. “He was awake, and he was a little yellow,” she said. “But he was my same Brady.” Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said Folkens said he felt ill beginning Thursday. Shortly after his mother’s visit, Folkens was flown to Sioux Falls. Van Ballegooyen followed in a vehicle, and had her sister meet Brady at the hospital. But by the time she arrived at the hospital in Sioux Falls, her son had died, and staff were working to revive him. [Beth Wischmeyer, Sioux Falls Argus Leader]

Flown from the Custer Airport to Sioux Falls, about 350 miles: a flight of at least two hours in a state plane?

Brady's mother has been billed for the fateful plane ride and believes the state may have have infected her son with Hepatitis C possibly during a forced hair cutting incident, his immune system weakened from a potent acne medication contraindicated for use with other medicines with which Folkens was being treated.

In a phone interview Ms. Van Ballegooyen told this blog Brady never had a previous acne condition. After being urged to by the Brookings Police Department she signed off on Brady's admission as a child in need of supervision (CHINS) after Folkens' experimentation with cannabis. She is distraught with grief and is ready to fight for the truth but has yet been able to find a lawyer who wants to go up against Attorney General Marty Jackley.

She said she has been poring over documents and doing extensive readings on the legal ramifications of criminal neglect leading to wrongful death and the window for an argument before a judge is closing.

Brady's official death certificate shows the 17-year-old died from lymphocytic myocarditis associated with Parvovirus B19: Dawn Van Ballegooyen believes that the state is covering up key evidence.

Why was he not helicoptered to Rapid City about fifteen minutes away for dialysis? Why was Brady admitted to the State Treatment and Rehabilitation (STAR) Academy without any symptoms of Hepatitis C but then was later diagnosed with it?

The state has a history of poor choices made by state employees: fourteen year old Gina Score died after a forced run in 1999. The state settled with Score's family for an undisclosed amount of money without accepting guilt for her death.

This might be as close to an admission of guilt by the State as we'll see without a trial or lawsuit:

Jim Seward, general counsel for Gov. Dennis Daugaard, said the group is tasked with finding ways to divert youth away from commitments at the state's juvenile facilities in Custer, Plankinton and Sioux Falls. If the juvenile justice system were a pool, Seward said, with the shallow end being county probation and monitoring, DOC commitments would represent "the deep end." It's also clear that regardless of the divergent definitions and programs, South Dakota commits more juveniles per capita than almost any other state. More populated parts of the state are more likely to have options for troubled youth beyond a trip to the STAR Academy. Judges, prosecutors and probation officers from smaller areas have told work group members that they'd like to see more ways to avoid commitments. [John Hult, Sioux Falls Argus Leader]

This is a good example why PAs or CNPs assigned to medical cases is questionable: as i suspected, whoever diagnosed Hep C profiled Brady as a user and chose to do nothing about it.

Measles cases climb to 6 in South Dakota. State epidemiologist Lon Kightlinger, "This isn't finished by a long shot." http://t.co/F6BNe0kJFy
— DocuTAP (@DocuTAP) December 31, 2014