In a state of high excitement, two 17-year-old boys walked into the courthouse of Maricopa County, Arizona. Having served time at the state's "rehabilitation" school at Fort Grant, both had some hair-raising tales to tell. The man they asked to see was Charles C. Bernstein, who presided in the juvenile division of superior court. If anyone would listen to them, the "kids' judge" would.
That morning, two months ago, Judge Bernstein did listen—to stories of whippings, blackjackings and assorted cruelties that were hard to believe. But he decided to do some investigating. By last week, he had learned enough to haul Superintendent George R. Ridgway and five of his employees into court in one of the most sordid scandals Arizona has known in years.
Among the Bullheads. For four days, as the trial went on, one boy after another described the sort of thing that goes on inside the adobe walls of Fort Grant. One boy testified that the superintendent had ordered him to hold on to two doorknobs, then lashed him with a fan belt. Another witness accused Guard Rudy Ramirez of going into inmates' rooms at night and whipping them for no apparent reason. "I saw [him] beat and kick another boy," said the witness. "He kicked him with his feet when he was down on the ground."
A third witness took the stand and told how he had been beaten by Ramirez with a blackjack. Two boys who had once run away said that, when caught, they were made to walk barefoot for 8½ hours while guards rode behind them in a truck. Other runaways' heads were shaved and they were put to work, barefooted and bareheaded, in a patch of bullheads (a prickly form of sandbur). At the end of 18 days in the August sun, their heads were blistered, and one boy had blood poisoning from a wound on his foot.
Behind the Woodpile. The six defendants protested that the boys were exaggerating. But under crossexamination, they conceded that most of the details were true. Guard Ramirez admitted he had used a blackjack. Guards Terry Quinn and Albert Allen admitted that they had dragged two boys behind a woodpile and taken turns lashing them with a fan belt. Even Superintendent Ridgway confessed he used the whip. "But none of the boys that I know of limped after they were whipped." Besides, said the defense, the law allows "reasonable corporal punishment," and Fort Grant is certainly reasonable.
At week's end, Superior Court Judge Fred C. Struckmeyer Jr. still had to give his verdict on just how reasonable Fort Grant is. But whatever he decides, Ridgway & Co. still have troubles. Last week, by order of Attorney General McGrath, FBI agents were investigating Fort Grant. The incident that interested them was a report that involved a twelve-year-old runaway who had been clubbed, whipped, hung by the neck until almost strangled, then hauled down and finally forced at whip's-end to run in front of a truck until he collapsed.