The "Fight Club"

A couple of months ago some staff members at Corpus Christi State School got busted for organizing what everyone is calling a "fight club." At the time I was working in the State Schools section of DADS and things were pretty rough. We were all told we weren't allowed to talk to anyone about the situation and the acts were only "alleged," even though there was video evidence. It was only a matter of time before the videos were released to the media.

Two months later, the media has finally started talking about the situation, in depth, and the videos have been released. The videos are from staff member's cell phones and it was a complete accident those videos were found. A staff member, apparently, left their cell phone, by accident, at a hospital and it was recovered and turned in to the police. The videos surfaced and tell a horrible story.

It makes me sick to think people can treat other human beings in this way. If you watch the video you'll see a man walking away and moaning, pleading with his staff. "I'll be good!" Watching it brought tears to my eyes. The sad thing about this is, other than the obvious, it went on for a long time. How did no one know about this? How did no one notice the bruising and cuts on these individuals? How did no one report, even anonymously, the situation? The staff directly involved were fired and have been convicted. What about the other people who knew about it? You can't tell me NO ONE knew about it. Are people really so heartless they could sit back and watch as disabled people are beaten up?

It angers me that our system allows for this kind of behavior to happen. Caring for people with developmental disabilities is not an easy job. It's stressful and trying and usually goes unrewarded by employers. When you pay someone minimum wage to care for people, the "Fight Club" is what happens. Higher ups at State Office came up with "great" plans to fix the problem, but not any of their solutions paid people more money. Not any of their solutions will actually prevent this kind of behavior. Texas is so far behind, it's sick. Why can't we use other states as models and make our system better? I just don't understand.

There's legislation talk that will close Texas State Schools, but they won't. These facilities house around 5,000 people. Where would all of those people go, you ask? They'll go to community homes which are just as bad. It's not our State Schools that are the problem, it's people's thinking. It's our local society that's the problem. What does it take for people to realize the current system is failing, has been failing for a long time, and we're hurting innocent people?