7 fired over prank-call shock treatments

[Steve]

BOSTON - Seven people have been fired over electrical shocks given to two emotionally disturbed teenagers at the direction of what turned out to be a prank caller, the operator of the group home where the incident occurred said Thursday.

 

A state agency concluded that six staffers at a residence run by the Judge Rotenberg Education Center had ample reason to doubt the orders to administer the shocks. The staffers and a video surveillance worker on duty the night of the incident have been fired, school spokesman Ernest Corrigan said.

 

On Aug. 26, a caller posed as a supervisor and said he was ordering the punishments for the two teens, ages 16 and 19, because they had misbehaved earlier in the evening. But none of the staffers had witnessed any problems, and other boys said the two teens had done nothing wrong. One boy suggested the call was a hoax.

 

The teens were awakened in the middle of the night and given the shock treatments, at times while their legs and arms were bound. One teen received 77 shocks and the other received 29. One boy was treated for two first-degree burns.