From The Texas Tribune:
A Greenville foster care facility linked to the death of an 11-year-old last November had a history of sexual misconduct and physical abuse, including organizing fights between children and restraining one boy so severely he was hospitalized, according to a federal report filed Tuesday.
Details about the problems at Thompson’s Residential Treatment Center, which opened in 2009, were made public in a report filed by court monitors in the ongoing 14-year-old federal lawsuit over how Texas cares for roughly 7,500 children placed in long-term foster care.
First reported by The Texas Tribune last week, the 11-year-old boy, identified in court documents as O.R., died on Nov. 27, during a movie outing organized by the facility, which the state has permanently closed. He was one of 16 foster care children who died while in the state’s care between Nov. 2, 2023, to Feb. 5.
Of those deaths, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, is investigating six, including O.R’s death. Another eight involved children with severe medical conditions. One child died from a fatal car collision and one teenager died from a fentanyl overdose.
Tuesday’s report is a routine update ordered by U.S. District Judge Janis Jack who has overseen the case since it began in 2011. It may be the final court filing under Jack. Hours after the filing, the 5th U.S. District Court of Appeals denied a request to reconsider its decision last fall to remove Jack from the case.
On Oct. 11, a three-judge panel of the New Orleans court found that Jack’s “highly antagonistic demeanor” during one hearing in 2023 called into doubt at least “the appearance of fairness” for defendants in the case, Texas Health and Human Services Commission and Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. The plaintiffs asked for a rehearing before the entire court and in a 9-5 ruling late Tuesday, the appeals court denied it. Their ruling will become official on Feb. 19 when the entire case will be reassigned to a new judge.
Since mid-2019 when Jack started ordering court monitors to produce death reports, 65 children in long-term foster care placements have died. Many of the deaths involved medically fragile and disabled children. But some, such as O.R.’s, suggest inadequate care by staff charged with keeping foster children safe after being removed from their abusive and neglectful family environments.
Other children whose deaths are currently under investigation by the state welfare agency, per Tuesday’s report, include:
• An 8-year-old intellectually disabled girl who died of sepsis following a kidney infection.
• A non-verbal 12-year-old girl who had dislodged her tracheostomy tube, sending her into respiratory distress.
• A 17-year-old girl who died from an unknown cause during a weekend visit with relatives. She died in a bedroom where narcotic and alcoholic substances were found.
• A blind and non-verbal 7-year-old girl using a wheelchair, catheter and a ventilator died after her foster parents called paramedics because her blood pressure dropped.
• A 5-year-old with cerebral palsy and seizures who died at his therapeutic foster home after his foster parent noticed he was unresponsive.
In the earlier reports detailing the deaths of 49 children, between July 19, 2019 and Nov. 1, 2023, eight children died after being abused or neglected by their caregivers, the court report stated.
Thompson’s regulatory history
A residential treatment center, like Thompson’s, is one of the most restrictive housing types in the foster care system and children placed there typically have serious behavioral issues.
The court monitors’ report devotes five of its 19 pages to the death of O.R. and details how Thompson’s Residential Treatment Center, fully licensed in 2010, was able to stay in business despite years of problems.
In 2011, state licensing investigators found the facility used staff-organized fights between the boys as conflict resolution.
“The fights were referred to as a game called “Tap Out” or “Choke Out,” the court monitors’ report stated. “Staff would ‘referee’ the fights, make bets on who they thought would win and would sometimes fight the children.”
This same 2011 investigation found that children were being restrained in prone or supine positions with their limbs twisted behind their backs and the boys reported being tackled by staff. The children also “revealed inappropriate sexual behavior occurred between children at the facility.”
Despite the successful completion of the voluntary “plan of action” that included training staff on “appropriate restraints and boundaries,” reports of staff failing to intervene in fights between children was the subject of subsequent complaints, the court report stated.
In 2018, a child had to be hospitalized after a restraint used at Thompson’s resulted in a laceration to his liver. The operation was placed under more frequent inspections in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
During a 15-month period ending July 2024, the state found 51 deficiencies at Thompson’s, pointing to a range of trouble areas involving staffing, the physical condition of the facility, medication dispensed to children and treatment plans for children.
Two investigations resulted in substantiated findings of physical abuse at the facility in 2023, forcing the facility to enter its second voluntary “plan of action” with the state. That plan was never completed and Thompson’s continued to be cited with 28 more deficiencies. Many of those involved problems with staff supervision, sometimes resulting in children being treated at the hospital for injuries.
Despite all of these problems, Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which licenses foster care facilities, granted a full permit to the owners of Thompson’s for a second facility in Farmersville in neighboring Collin County in 2020. Shortly after opening, one employee was found to be the alleged perpetrator in four investigations involving physical abuse in 2020 and three in 2021. The state welfare agency was unable to substantiate these allegations, but the commission issued a citation to the Farmersville facility for corporal punishment after finding the same staff member hit and pushed children there.
That second operation in Farmersville voluntarily closed in June 2021.
The next year, the Farmersville operation re-opened under different ownership and the administrator was the wife of Thompson’s Residential Treatment Center’s owner, Chaun Thompson, a former NFL player, the report stated. Thompson did not respond to The Texas Tribune’s requests for comment.
Eventually that Farmerville operation closed a second time on Dec. 18, 2024.
O.R.’s final days at Thompson’s
O.R., who was born with a gastrointestinal birth defect, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and trauma and stressor-related disorder, among other medical issues. He had been prescribed four psychotropic drugs, and was placed in Thompson’s two weeks before his death, according to the court report.
After complaining about stomach pain Thanksgiving week, he was told he and his 19 housemates were to attend a showing of “Gladiator II” at Greenville’s only movie theater. He was forced to attend the movie outing despite crying and complaining of stomach pain and constipation.
Security camera video at the theater, according to the court’s report, showed O.R. struggling to stand as he made his way to the theater and could not walk without staff members’ assistance.
Police reported to the state welfare agency that the security video showed that O.R. was “unsteady on his feet,” looked like he was “about to pass out” and was unable to walk on his own, falling at least once on his way to his seat.
Two Thompson’s staff members took O.R. to his theater seat and despite urinating on himself, he was left in his soiled clothing to watch the movie, the report detailed. At one point during the movie, O.R. died.
Despite the security footage, Thompson’s staff members first told police who responded to the child’s death that O.R. was “fine” when they went into the movie. They held to that story until officers viewed the theater’s security video.
The state notified its intention to revoke Thompson’s license as a residential treatment center a week after the death and officially revoked it on Feb. 4.
The Department of Family and Protective Services declined to comment on the court filing and the Health and Human Services Commission did not respond to a request for comment.
