He ran the school on fear, says Colton Schrag, a former gang associate who attended the school twice between 2004 and 2010, and is not suing because the statute of limitations has expired. Cedar County Sheriff James Jimbob McCrary denied that Graves was present for interviews with students. We need people who will financially contribute and volunteer at the event to help give these . Federal lawmakers say they plan to introduce legislation to curtail abuses in the industry. Another describes a staffer holding a pocket knife to his throat. Schmitt was elected to the U.S. Senate last year and sworn in this month. There were horses, a swimming pool, and a football team. After abuse allegations at Circle of Hope Girls Ranch, a religious boarding school near Agap, began spreading on TikTok last spring, the Cedar County Sheriffs Department opened an investigation, which the state attorney general joined and is ongoing. Yet the delays have frustrated state lawmakers. The state has been fighting to close Agap ever since. Operators declined to comment about the investigation. The state social services department determined in a preliminary finding in 2018 that Householder physically abused a minor, according to court documents but that was not publicized and the school continued to enroll students for more than two years before it voluntarily closed. His religious mother wasnt having it. Agape Baptist Church owns and operates the private boarding school for boys in Stockton, MO. Plaintiff was allegedly physically, sexually, and emotionally abused while under the care and supervision of . Former students wonder if its because of this that authorities failed to act sooner. They led to a front-page story in the Cedar County Republican. Jennifer says she knows it will take a while to reconnect, and she worries about the psychic scars left by the school shes already noticed that her son hates horses now. Agape Ranch will establish a safe environment of. Once they were done, staff members took away Schrags clothes and bedding, he said, and made him wear only a bathrobe and his boxers for two months. Circle of Hope closed in 2020, and its owners, Boyd and Stephanie Householder, face 101 felony charges, including statutory rape, abuse and neglect of a child. Jacob smelled foul and the . (They do so much good for this town and you cannot believe the difference they have made in these young men, says Jackie Cargell, who has lived in the town for 57 years.) The AG was on board. Colton Shrag, age 16 on a home visit from Agap in 2008. Agape bills itself as a 30-year-old Christian outfit that "has helped thousands of troubled teens" in part "by showing God's love daily to these boys." But those who identify as abuse survivors . They noted that DSS had confirmed a case of child abuse and added the name of the Agap staffer responsible to the Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry, prohibiting him from working at a residential facility. Amanda, then 29, says her parents kicked her out when she was 17. The cases against five people who worked at Agape Boarding school are moving forward. It could last for days on end. "If you have children who are fearful that they're going to be sent back to these facilities, you see a lot of instances where children might recant their stories," said Caitlin Whaley, director of legislation for the department. The action galvanized Agap alumni, as well, and they began telling their stories to local media and on podcasts. Locals says the Clemensens ingratiated themselves by offering tours, and hosting Boy Scout breakfasts and luncheons for the local Methodist group. First published on January 11, 2023 / 6:04 PM. Agape also faces criminal charges . Missouri previously had virtually no . The newly appointed attorney general, Andrew Bailey, had said he planned to continue pursuing closure. Agape Boarding School is located on a 200-acre ranch in Stockton, Missouri. A Tri-City Herald story from 1996 said that Franklin County officials ordered the facility to close for code violations over removing and . This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. It was time to go. Seven former students said staff members had assaulted them. Hilton tweeted to Missouri's attorney general and governor on June 21. They held a blood drive, organized a Fourth of July fireworks spectacular, and began holding an annual rodeo. To him, it seemed arbitrary and needlessly brutal. Clidence said Agap fired him in March 2015 when the school asked employees to sign a nondisparagement agreement, and he refused. But legislation she pushed for several years to require these programs to be licensed by the state the same way as secular facilities repeatedly failed to even get a vote. Agape now has roughly 60 students, about half of the population the school had in early 2021 when the Missouri Highway Patrol and DSS launched an investigation into abuse allegations. Missouri has been a particular hotbed for religious schools since 1982, when the state passed a law exempting faith-based residential child-care facilities from state oversight. Schrag says the verbal abuse was constant. In August, Sandoval was charged with arranging the kidnapping of an emancipated teen in Fresno, California, on behalf of the boys estranged mother, and then having him driven, handcuffed, 27 hours to Agap. So they were all, in my book, guilty of association, said Schrag. Minnesota has even less control. Indeed, the version of the school students describe, community members say, is starkly different from the Agap the town has come to know. Interested in learning more about the 2023 Legacy Gala? The staff often singled out members of Brown Town for abuse, depositions filed by former Agap students suggest. I tried to find a record of it, but there was none. (The Cedar County Sheriffs Department did not return calls seeking comment.). The three were convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. People who have care, custody, and control of those children have that right, as well. For $3,250 in tuition per month, the school claims on its website that it can turn around defiant and rebellious boys through spiritual growth., Parents, who are only allowed to visit with two weeks notice, are warned in the school handbook they should never try and interfere with the policies or rules of Agap Boarding School. Breshears spotted a baseball bat poking out of an equipment bag. The next home at The Ranch is for youth aging-out of foster care and the need is urgent. After being charged with more than 100 felonies last year linked to allegations of child sex abuse, physical abuse, endangerment and neglect, the owners of a now-defunct Missouri girls ranch . Related: More than a dozen people reported abuse at a religious boarding school in rural Missouri before the owners' daughter launched a campaign that got action. The most surprising thing is that nothing has been done so far to change anything, Ingle said. These punishments, former students say, were often administered in a small room down a dark staircase, in the basement of the church, with blue padded floors and holes punched in the wall. He says staff would restrain boys on the ground and use pressure points to the point of bruising. ON SEPT. 7, 2022, ATTORNEY GENERAL SCHMITT and the State Department of Social Services (DSS) filed to close Agap. The Kansas City Star ran a series of exposs detailing shocking allegations first about Circle of Hope, then Agap. Agape Boarding School was moving away from the "nonbelievers" in Washington and California and heading east. After the state removed students from the school in August, Circle of Hope voluntarily . The foothills of the Ozarks sat in the distance. Montana carved out a religious exemption when it set up a new system for licensing youth facilities and reform schools in 2007. Graves did not respond to a request for comment. But instead of the therapeutic environment the schools leaders promised, Schrag and 11 others who were sent to Agap as children from the late 1990s up to last year, as well as four former staff members, told NBC News they saw Agap workers hold boys down and hit them. Operators advertise it as a national boarding school for at-risk or unmotivated boys. They were very detailed and professional. (NBC News presented a copy of Clidences nondisparagement agreement to Agap to confirm or dispute its authenticity, but the school did not respond.). Regretfully, child abuse and neglect have continued to rise and the work of Agape Ranch is needed now more than ever. I realized I cant be the only former student to have these problems, he says. Contact Agape International Missions Email: info@aim4asia.org Phone: 916.784.2800. The site was littered with old barrels, wood piles, abandoned cars, and insulation containing asbestos. It won't be long here in Missouri, he said. None of these raised eyebrows until former Agap staffers Boyd and Stephanie Householder opened Circle of Hope Girls Ranch. Agaps handbook states it has a strict hands-off policy regarding the students, and does not use corporal punishment. (Agap denies any knowledge of these allegations. Staff called it the intake room. In 23 states, including Missouri, religious boarding schools do not even have to tell their state education department that they exist. The group claims a wide range of abuse, from starvation to physical and emotional abuse. And that's what it's all about.. Then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt's office contended that 22 workers should have been charged, and with more serious crimes. STOCKTON, Mo. Cedar . Agape Treatment Center offers Drug and Alcohol Rehab as well as Primary Mental Health Treatment. They denied it. On Jan. 11, 2023, Agap Boarding School announced it will close its doors, a decision former director Bryan Clemensen says is due to a lack of financial resources. Agape's doctor is charged with child sex crimes and five employees are accused of assault, though Missouri's attorney general thinks many more workers should have been charged.. Just last summer, former students at a pair of Wyoming ranches alleged in an NBC investigation that they had been forced to perform backbreaking manual labor and subjected to traumatic physical and emotional abuse. Lawmakers proposed legislation to provide oversight for faith-based boarding schools in Missouri. The glass flew everywhere, he says. In September 2021, he charged five Agap staff members with a total of 13 counts of third-degree assault, the lowest degree of felony. One killed in officer-involved shooting in Branson, Mo. ), Other students describe staffers encouraging classmates to fight one another, and cutting off communication with loved ones when they complained. Nathan Papes/Springfield News-Leader/Imagn. . Bucklin wrote the video shows a staff . We are the best rehab . Woody Harrelson Spreads Anti-Vax Conspiracies During SNL Monologue You can start to heal., For his part, Breshears is grateful to be free. Circle of Hope Girls Ranch near Humansville . Robert Bucklin, 28, who is identified in the motion and lawsuit as R.B. That's because Agap is a religious school, which makes it exempt from the state rules governing secular boarding schools and childrens homes. Where they stop looking to drugs, or their friends, and say to God, I need your help to feel better. If you dont save their souls, it aint going to stick.. Agape Boys Ranch Entrance. Trump White House Pressured Disney to Censor Jimmy Kimmel Agape Connection. Boyd opened the ranch in 2006 as a "school that he claimed could reform rebellious teenage girls," according to NBC News. They also look at records from any incidents in which a child is injured or restrained. One deposed student describes attempting to jump off a staircase at Agap in a gesture of suicidal desperation which prompted a staffer to grab him, throw him six feet across the floor, sit on his back, and bash his head into the floor multiple times, leaving him in a pile of snot and blood, while screaming, Is this what you want? (Agap confirms restraining the student, but says it was not a form of abuse but an attempt to prevent harm to the boy.) Another former student said under oath that he was yanked out of bed and slammed to the floor for waking up late, kicked and punched in the balls by former dean of students Julio Sandoval, and kicked in the ribs and face in front of the rest of the school by Bryan Clemensen. The Republican-sponsored measure requires religious boarding schools to register with the state, pass a health department inspection and ensure that staff meet minimum standards. That . Among other things, the new state law allows state or local authorities to petition the court for closure of a facility if children's safety or health are believed to be in immediate danger. More than 90% of young adults aging-out of the foster care system will become homeless, incarcerated, in prostitution, sex trafficked, or dead within three years. On March 9, 2021, AG Schmitt announced 102 charges against the Householders, including rape and physical abuse. But in some states that have tried to close this oversight gap in recent years, like Montana, lawmakers have met with resistance. Bindley, who Clemensen calls one of Agaps top success stories, says the experience left him with lasting trauma, and left a stain on my childhood growing up., Colton Schrag says he decided to speak after PTSD drove him into counseling. 1:00. Despite the concerns former students have raised recently, no state agency has the ability under Missouri law to regularly inspect how children at Agap are treated. More than 90% of young adults aging out of the foster system will become homeless, incarcerated, in prostitution, sex trafficked, or dead within three years. But the bills essentially became a referendum on one unregulated facility, the Pinehaven Christian Children's Ranch in St. Ignatius, Montana, whose founder showed up to hearings with supporters to argue against the change. Thats where someone went too far. So far Clemensen has kept his name out of the registry; he lost an appeal on Nov. 17, and filed for a judicial review in circuit court, which granted him a temporary restraining order keeping him off the list. Relevance: This course is designed for master's level counselors, addiction professionals, and nurses who have direct client contact. Youre going to be dead or in prison three months after you turn 18.. Within a few months, he says, three students ran away. Each worker is facing abuse charges. When more severe penalties were required, according to students, civil suits, and a search warrant filed later by state investigators, Agap staffers would hold the boys facedown on the floor while pressing their elbows, knees, and fingers into students pressure points, a pain compliance method known as a restraint. Or worse. Many Stockton residents consider Agap a mark of honor. Tripadvisor names the world's top 25 beaches, three in the U.S. CDC warns drug-resistant stomach bug a "serious public health threat". Boyd and Stephanie Householders daughter says they worked at Agape for four years. I watched him choke, slam kids into the floor, and just basically beat the shit out of them. "If you're using the Bible or God to justify any of these things, that is sacrilegious.". Earlier this year, Smock, the schools longtime physician, was charged with 12 felony sexual-molestation crimes against those in his care. Agape Boarding School, a Christian reform school in Cedar County, is under investigation by local authorities and the Missouri Attorney Generals office. Passing under the majestic cross affixed to its towering arched entryway, Breshears gazed over a beautiful campus. In 1992, the Clemensens announced to their troubled wards that they were moving to a promised land of sorts: an old Air Force base six miles outside of tiny Othello, Washington. When 19-year-old Rebekah Cooper started her mission, she had to give up her first name . Yet, when a social worker visited the school a year ago to follow up on a report that boys had been forced to run outside in the freezing temperatures and sleet, Francis said he claimed hed never seen abuse at Agap. They have law-enforcement ties, too. Appalled, he used his phone to surreptitiously record Boyd Householder, who appeared to be ordering Circle of Hope students to physically assault one of their classmates. The site, designed as a Christian camp, had cabins, a shower facility, a mess hall, and a small chapel. The term encompasses various facilities and programs, including youth residential treatment centers, wilderness programs, boot camps, and therapeutic boarding schools.. She thought heavy metal was like witchcraft, he says. He says he and others suffered frequent physical abuse, at the hands of at least a dozen staff members, and others didnt stop it. / AP. That is blasphemous.. Updated: Dec 13, 2022 / 12:48 PM CST. After abuse allegations at Circle of Hope Girls' Ranch, a religious boarding school near Agap, began spreading on TikTok last spring, the Cedar County Sheriff's Department opened an investigation, which the state attorney general joined and is ongoing. I believe the community is aware. In civil suits, Agap students describe being choked with rebar and electrical cords, pushed through drywall, having their noses broken, and hit in the testicles hard enough to cause traumatic groin injury. They say several boys attempted to hang themselves, in what they call a pandemic among students. Agap, through its attorney, denies the allegations, and says that no student there has ever killed himself. Other punishments, the former students and staff members said, included forcing boys to stare at a wall for hours, limiting meals to peanut butter sandwiches, and requiring students to haul rocks outside from one pile to another. It received initial passage in the house and needs one more vote before going on to the Senate. He is pleased to hear the Missouri attorney generals office is now investigating Agape Boarding School. I hired Agape to cut the lawn. And they would never tell you how long your stay in Brown Town will be, Breshears says. That's no secret, as news stories in The Christian. But under state law at the time, the schools didnt have to tell the government they existed, and it took years of complaints before child welfare officials shut down their operations in 2015, and prosecutors charged the owners and a counselor at the facilities with aggravated child abuse. In 1991, Todd Bindley, then 13, moved in. Related: I am proof that money doesnt protect against abuse, Hilton told state legislators, speaking in support of a bill that would better protect children in troubled-youth treatment programs. Francis said that Robert Graves, a Cedar County sheriffs deputy who had worked at Agap, sat in on a meeting Francis had with a social worker who was looking into abuse allegations at the school. It will stop providing service effective Jan. 20, according to a statement from the school for boys. LAST MARCH, BRESHEARS SAYS, he was on kitchen duty when a staffer said some chocolate milk was missing from the fridge, and accused Breshears and several other students of stealing it. The school is a nonprofit owned by the Agap Baptist Church, which was also started by the Clemensens. Though the area is largely Baptist, Cedar County has a tradition of religious tolerance. The school states on its website that its staff are trained in proper restraining tactics, which are only used if a child is a threat to others and last for just a few minutes. He says one told local police that he had escaped from a Nazi camp.. His grandparents sent him to a mental hospital, then to Agap. But in July, his mother rewon custody and sprung him from Agap. It appeared to be a vast improvement over his previous digs. Meanwhile, tales of abuse continue to emerge. Ellie Hill Smith, a state lawmaker from Missoula, was concerned that this meant the state had no way of ensuring children were safe in these programs. Jim Clemensen, a former California Highway Patrol officer, initially decided to open a group home in Stockton, California, before setting up Agap on an old Air Force base in Othello, Washington. When I first got there, I just stayed on the low, trying to do my best, hoping to get out, he says. One student said staffers had branded him with a cross. After Schrag, then 14, refused to answer their questions, he said, one of the employees knocked him to the ground, and then others held him facedown, pressing a knee into his back and head. Francis lied, he said, because Robert Graves a Cedar County sheriffs deputy who is on the board of Agaps church and has worked at the school was present for the interview. Cedar County Prosecutor Ty Gaither asked the governors office for help in his investigation of the Agape Ranch and Boarding School west of Stockton. Attendance at Agape plummeted after abuse allegations surfaced. February 28, 2023. Bryan Clemensen stops a tour of the group home to pet Sally, the ranchs beloved camel. There, according to Bindley, he was put to work painting, roofing, and helping to dismantle a web of lead pipes covered in asbestos, which he was told to carry to the top of a hill and throw into a pit used to burn garbage. Pinehaven did not respond to a request for comment. Agape Ranch will establish a safe environment of 24 homes where foster children can receive the support they need in order to mature in all aspects of their lives. Gaither says at this point, they dont know if there will be any charges. (KY3) - Missouris attorney general is investigating a second Cedar County boarding school. Advocates are watching the Agap case, and suggest it illustrates why federal legislation is needed. In May 2021, the law requiring religious schools to register with the state passed. That shouldn't be happening., If not, he added, kids are going to wind up losing their lives.. In other words, Grandmother can spank the children as can Agap.. Address . Agap did not respond to repeated requests for comment and interviews via phone, email and a letter left at the schools reception desk. He says he was once ordered to perform 4,500 pushups for cussing and told if I didnt get it done, I couldnt eat my next meal. (Though Breshears says he couldnt do it, Agap denies ever denying a student a meal.) After each event, the team assesses what went well, what could be done better, and how many children/foster families were positively impacted. Clemensen picked the state specifically because of its lack of regulation, he told a reporter in 2002, and said the school would leave Missouri if required to get a license. More than 60% of the children in our county are being placed outside of our county due to the lack of foster homes in our community. abuse at agape I have spent the last 5 days at agape boys ranch helping with the annual horse sale. One night, he got into an argument with his mom and stepdad that turned physical, and they accused him of being possessed. Contact Jorden Tramp, Donor Relations & Event Coordinator at. This created an environment ripe for abuse to happen. Former students say Clemensen, a paunchy middle-aged man with a buzz cut, a soft chin, and a stern manner, had a technique that he called Jurassic Elbow which entailed slamming his elbow into the back of a students skull, face, ribs, or down between the shoulder blades. (361) 742-6330. Many children in foster care feel unlovable because of the abuse they've suffered all their lives. The report, which also examined 10 cases where teenagers had died, noted that there are currently no federal laws that define and regulate residential treatment programs.. A judge ordered the school closed only to put the order on hold after Agap fired the staffer in question. Wednesday afternoon, a House committee questions Missouri Department of Social Services leaders about their investigations into boarding schools. Share. Sick with a heart condition, Jim left the force in 1979 and moved Kathy, Bryan, and his siblings to Stockton, a sweltering agricultural city on the once-mighty San Joaquin River. The Clemensens sent 100 boys home, and moved the rest to base housing.
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