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Tennessee juvenile court judge used policies to illegally arrest and detain kids, sometimes without sufficient cause, a probe found. - Rutherford County has settled an $11 million class-action lawsuit on behalf of the children who were illegally arrested and detained.
Jacob Somers recalls being 14 years old the first time he was arrested by authorities in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He recalled police pushing him up against a wall and handcuffing him before walking him out of his apartment complex in front of his neighbors. He cried in the back of the police car, and the cops ignored him, he said.
"There were maybe two or three cops that I could feel that they understood this isn't normal, this isn't right," Somers, now 22, told Insider. "All the other ones, they want to be hard on me and try and do that whole scared straight thing."
"They would fully pat me down, search me, and then take me to juvenile, and then I'd be sitting in there for two weeks at a time," Somers added. "It just became such a common thing."
Somers said he was arrested on charges like unruliness or truancy about 10 times before he turned 18. It added up to nearly six months at Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center. The county is in the process of settling a class-action lawsuit alleging the county was illegally arresting and detaining children dating back to the 1990s.
ProPublica reported that in 2014, Rutherford County jailed the children that were arrested in 48% of cases, compared to the state average of 5%. The county has agreed to pay up to $11 million, including $7.75 million to the children who were arrested and detained.
Somers is one of about 1,500 plaintiffs represented by the lawsuit. He claimed that his time in the juvenile detention system derailed his life.
"I had a couple of truancy charges because of the fact I was missing so much school because I was in juvenile," Somers said, adding that he bounced around alternative schools and homeschooling before dropping out before graduating. "I just kind of gave up cause I missed so much school … I had no idea what was going on."
'The judge, jury, and executioner'
Rutherford County's Juvenile Court Judge Donna Scott Davenport utilized a "process" that involved having children arrested by police, ProPublica reported. After their arrest, the children were taken to a juvenile detention center where a jailer - who was appointed by Davenport - used a "filter system" to decide which children to hold. The children later appear before Davenport in juvenile court. Davenport's office did not respond to Insider's requests for comment.
During proceedings for the lawsuit against Rutherford County in 2017, Davenport said the "safety of the child" is a top priority in deciding whether to detain children, which meant determining "if the child is a risk to themselves or a risk to the community." She tried to "dig deep on those detention hearings" in order to "find out what's going on" with the children and their families, she said, according to court documents.
"We listen to everybody that touches and concerns our children so that when they leave there, we can go ahead and start that process that we're mandated to do, which is to help them and treat and rehabilitate that bad behavior," Davenport said during proceedings.
In court documents, Davenport said "we're dealing with the offender in juvenile court. We're not dealing with the offense."
Somers said Davenport was harsh on children as well as their families, recalling one time that Davenport told Somers' mother to "shut your mouth" as she tried to explain their family situation during a court hearing. He added that of all the times he was arrested, he never considered himself a danger to others or himself.
"Judge Davenport told me that - excuse my language - if I don't straighten my shit, then she was going to lock me up until I was 18. I was 16 at the time," Somers said. "She pretty much was the judge, jury, and executioner."
Somers' roommate, Zachary Chittavong, also went through the juvenile justice system in Rutherford County. They work together now doing utility work and laying water pipes for 50 hours a week. Chittavong was sent to the juvenile center several times between ages 11 and 17. He was charged with burglary and unlawful drug paraphernalia, among other things.
"None of them were violent. I was not a mean kid," Chittavong, now 22, told Insider. "Nobody was being harmed. Not even myself. There were no threats against myself or anyone else. It was mostly just as punishment, like, 'You did something bad, so I'm going to show you what I could do to make you straighten up.'"
Chittavong also got truancy charges for missing school while he was in the juvenile center, and he bounced around different alternative schools until, like Somers, he dropped out. It was during that time he said he developed a drug habit.
"I got really bad on drugs because like all the people that were just chilling there ... they all wanted to be gangbangers, fight and sell drugs or get on drugs," Chittavong said. "Eventually, that shit broke me. I was like, I guess I'll try it too. I was already a fuck up basically in the eyes of education and school and the state. I was just trying to find myself. It didn't work out too well."
Inside the juvenile detention center
The Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center is described as a "64-bed facility" that serves as secure housing for juveniles, according to its website. The center also provides for "the care, safety, and protection of youth in an environment that fosters healthy social, emotional, and intellectual development."
Rutherford County has a promotional video, narrated by Davenport, advertising the facility's services to surrounding counties who may want to place detainees in the detention center, a service for which Rutherford county charges $175 per day, per child, ProPublica found.
Chittavong remembers the detention center differently. He recalled the small cells and thin mattresses that he compared to a "camping bedroll with plastic all over it." They had to sleep with the lights on, so Chittavong would wrap his shirt around his head at night. Sometimes, they were allowed to have books or rent a pencil to write letters to family members. They could call their parents every other day.
"Each time I was in juvie, it was just another weird experience of feeling like I was just going to be stuck in there forever, going down the wrong part of the system. Being stuck in a system and not being a normal person," Chittavong said.
Chittavong said detainees weren't permitted to sleep during the day; guards would bang on the doors or even pepper spray them if they were caught lying down. When the children were awoken before 5 a.m. for showers, the guards on patrol would "just sit there and stare at you while you're butt naked."
"They definitely looked at you like you weren't a normal person," he said. "You just feel the judgment in their eyes, like you're lesser than… You're just somebody that's lost, and you're no longer going to be able to get out of the system. You're never going to be something in life."
A spokesperson for Rutherford County said the "conditions and practices" of the juvenile detention center "meet the institutional standards set forth by the State." They declined to offer further comment.
An ongoing cycle
Since going through the juvenile system, both Somers and Chittavong have been to jail as adults, as have many of their friends. Once you go through the system as a juvenile, you will almost certainly go through the system as an adult, they said.
"When you get inside the system here, you're stuck in it for good basically," Chittavong said, adding that if your family couldn't afford to pay off the court fees, "you're just completely screwed" and would likely end up back in the juvenile center.
An estimated 2.1 million minors are arrested in the United States each year, and studies that followed juveniles released from detention centers found that the average rate of rearrest was 55%, according to data compiled by several federal agencies.
Michael, one of Somers and Chittavong's peers who went through the juvenile system, spoke to Insider from Rutherford County jail. He asked to go by his middle name for fear of repercussions from county officials for speaking out.
"It's so hard to get out, so hard to break the cycle," Michael, 22, told Insider. "Once you're tagged in Murfreesboro for something stupid, you're on the radar forever… Juvenile was not rehabilitation. It was more like torture, and you just get out and do the same old thing."
Of Rutherford County's population of approximately 332,000 people, 70% are white and 15% are Black. Still, the county disproportionately arrested and detained children of color, ProPublica reported. Michael, who is mixed, said race "definitely" played a part in sentencing.
"I've been to court, and me and some white kid had the same charges. He got sent home. I went to jail," Michael said. "It was definitely predominantly people of color."
'Everything needs to change'
In the future, Chittavong wants to "repair all the damage" from his childhood and gain a better outlook on life. Somers hopes to get his GED and use his settlement money to go to community college. He doesn't know where he will go but he wants to "definitely get out of Murfreesboro."
"A kid just being a kid now, rebelling a little bit, or a kid trying to find himself going through all the emotions of puberty and everything else like that is seen as...a danger to themselves and other people in this county," Somers said. "Everything needs to change, but I also don't think it ever will."
Michael hopes to go to rehab for his drug addiction and then go to college for a business degree.
"I want to have my own house, my own family," he said. "I don't want to be 30, 35 years old like everyone else in jail."
Plaintiffs of the class-action lawsuit had until October 29 to submit a claim for settlement money. Kyle Mothershead, one of the lawyers on the case, told Insider that over 500 claims were submitted and are currently pending approval. Plaintiffs who were illegally arrested may get $1,000, and those who were illegally detained may get about $4,800, he said.
"We are doing everything we can to obtain as much compensation as possible for the victims of Rutherford County's illegal detention and arrest policies," Mothershead said. "While we have put a stop to these policies through federal court intervention, we hope to see the officials responsible held accountable in the coming months - by the state government, the federal government, and the voters of Rutherford County."
Michael said he doesn't care about the settlement money.
"A thousand dollars is nothing compared to everything I've been through," Michael said. "It's not worth the money. I wish I could just have the time back."