School to Prison to Dead in Kentucky
We may never know exactly what Gynna McMillen did to warrant imprisonment - and make no mistake, juvenile detention centers are prison, as dehumanizing as any adult prison - but we know it wasn't a capital crime warranting execution.
From the AP:
A martial arts hold was used on a teenager hours before she was found dead at a Kentucky detention center, according to the state Department of Juvenile Justice.In Kentucky "out of parental control" is an actual crime for which children as young as 11 can be sent to a prison where they are executed for the secondary crime of refusing to submit to a strip search.
Lincoln Village Juvenile Detention Center officials found 16-year-old Gynnya McMillen of Shelby County unresponsive in her cell at the Elizabethtown facility on Jan. 11, multiple media outlets reported.
Stacy Floden of the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice wrote in an email that the Aikido restraint was used because the girl refused to remove her sweatshirt so she could be searched during the booking process. An Aikido restraint typically immobilizes a person's arm.
SNIP
They said she had arrived at the detention center Jan. 10 after allegedly having a domestic dispute with her mother in Shelbyville.
McMillen's family has hired attorney Ron Hillerich to look into the matter.
"We're not exactly sure what happened but I can tell you this. A 16-year-old child should not die in a state run facility," Hillerich told WLKY-TV.
This isn't the first time a child in state custody has died from "restraint," and it won't be the last until we stop treating children - and 16-year-olds are children - like criminals.
Oh, yeah - if you click on the link, you'll see a picture of Gynna. Surprise, surprise: she's not white.
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