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Former Dozier Inmates File Lawsuit
02/02/09 - 09:13 AM

By KATE McCARDELL Floridan Staff Writer

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A Marianna man is the only individual listed in a class-action suit that alleges he and several state entities are responsible for alleged abuse at the Florida Industrial School for Boys.

The class action suit, filed by Bryant Middleton, William Horne, Roger Kiser and Jimmy Jackson, lists the defendants as the Florida Department of Agriculture, the Florida Department of Children and Family Services, the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, the Florida Department of Corrections, and Troy Tidwell of Marianna.

Tidwell is being represented by the law office of Frank Bondurant and Matthew Fuqua of Marianna.

The suit was filed Jan. 22 in Pinellas County. The abuse was alleged to have taken place in Jackson County, but the state entities named in the suit are based in Leon County — part of the basis for a motion for dismissal filed by Bondurant and Fuqua.

“It’s in the early stage of litigation and we’re not prepared to comment at this time. We don’t think Troy Tidwell has done anything wrong and the facts of the case will ultimately bear the proof,” Bondurant said Friday.

Late last year, a group of men who call themselves the White House Boys made allegations of abuse — and possibly murder — which they allege took place in the 1950s and 1960s at the reform school now known as Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys.

Since the group has come forward, the state Department of Juvenile Justice placed a plaque acknowledging the abuse on the school grounds, where the bulk of the abuse allegedly took place, in a building known as the White House.

Subsequently, Gov. Charlie Crist ordered a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation into the allegations, and the contents of unnamed graves near the school’s grounds.

The one-armed man

Hundreds of former residents of the school have come forward with similar stories, many of them alleging that Tidwell was one of a handful school employees who committed the abuses.

In several interviews with the Floridan, several former residents who are not part of the suit describe being severely beaten under cover of night by a one-armed man, allegedly Troy Tidwell.  They claim Tidwell would turn on a fan to muffle the sounds made during the whippings.

As Tidwell’s attorneys attempt to get the suit thrown out,  their motion for dismissal claims issue with the plaintiffs’ approach as a class action suit.

“Claims such as assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress are individual claims not suited to a class action type proceeding ... The central problem with the plaintiff’s complaint is the attempt to bring the action as a class alleging that highly individualized issues are applicable to the entire group.”

A phone number listed for Tidwell is no longer in service.

In December, Tidwell declined to speak with CNN, but he was recently quoted in the Miami Herald saying the boys were “spanked” but not injured.

“Kids that were chronic cases, getting in trouble all the time, running away and what have you, they used that as a last resort,” Tidwell told the Herald. “We would take them to a little building near the dining room and spank the boys there when we felt it was necessary.”

‘I cry over it’

Bill Davidson of Sneads believes punishment went beyond spanking at the Florida School for Boys.

“People are saying it was typical punishment for that day and time? I was a kid back then and I can tell you what happened at that place was well beyond punishment. It was abuse. It was abuse. They pure beat the hell out of them,” Davidson said.

Davidson recalled visiting his two now-deceased cousins, Luscious and Joe Layton, who were at the school in the early 1950s. He was 10 or 11 and his older cousin Luscious was about 18 years old, he said.

“At the time I lived in Carrabelle. My aunt brought me to Marianna to visit them. The first day we tried, we were denied visitation,” Davidson said. “The next day, we got to. Luscious couldn’t even sit down, his legs were so raw from the beatings. They were acting funny. They said if the guards knew they talked, they’d get it worse.

“My aunt got him to lift his shirt. They’d plum cut the blood out of him. I still cry thinking about it. How fearful they were. It hurt my aunt. She cried a lot. She tried to talk to the people at the school, but they would hear her.”

The Layton brothers eventually escaped from the school, Davidson said.

“They was caught trying to steal a plane to get away in Apalachicola ... Eventually, Luscious was sent out to Raiford. He said they didn’t do none of that beating there,” Davidson recalled.

Years later and a week before he would die from cancer, Luscious Layton visited Davidson.

Layton recalled there were beatings, inappropriate touching and being forced to skip meals. He told Davidson about the sound of a fan that was meant to cover the sound of a leather and metal strap hitting his friends’ backsides as he stood waiting in line for his own beating.

“I remember bringing it up. I asked him to show me his scars again. He was marked for life. Scars criss-crossed his backside and the backs of his legs. When I asked him questions, he’d tell me not to ask no more,” Davidson said. “He’d turn his head and cry. Makes me glad I was a POW in Vietnam and not a boy at the Marianna school.”

“When I read about this in the paper, I started to cry again. But I’m glad these men are brave to come out about it,” Davidson said. “I ain’t getting no money to talk about this. I just think what happened was wrong and I want everyone to know. I cry over it. No human being should be beat like that ... Lord, I wouldn’t even beat an animal like that. I’d take a gun and shoot it before I beat it like that.”

Interviews continue

Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement continues to investigate allegations similar to Davidson’s.

A FDLE representative said Friday that investigators are still in the process of talking to individuals and reviewing records.

She could not say how many interviews had been conducted. But she said that the amount of time that has passed since the alleged abuse took place, combined with the fact that the school has changed hands several times, means investigators have a lot of work at hand.

Some have claimed that the investigation is a waste of tax dollars, or that it’s too far in the past to be acknowledged.

Former boys school resident Darby Tillis said he wants those people to know why he and so many other men are coming forward with their stories.

“Abuse still happens at these types of places. We all know this. We all hear about this. We want guards at these kinds of places, we want them to read about this and realize that what they do today, 25 years later this can come back and haunt them,” Tillis said. “This will get a lot of them thinking, ‘I shouldn’t do this or that because I don’t want to be sitting up in my home at an old age, drawing a state pension and all of a sudden getting served papers that I’m under federal investigation.’ It’ll remind people to stop and treat each other equally.”