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Monday, March 12, 2007

7 Year Old In Fatal Choke Hold

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posted by Bob at Monday, March 12, 2007

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Don't forget the 'horrendous thing that happened to Angie'
Sentencing is today for a Wisconsin clinic and its staff member who put the 7-year-old in a fatal choke hold.
By Paul Levy, Star Tribune
Last update: March 11, 2007 – 10:01 PM

The bumper stickers say "We'll never forget," and they appear almost everywhere in Rice Lake, Wis. While nearly everyone in this western Wisconsin city remembers the shooting deaths of six area hunters two years ago, an advocate group worries that another resident, who died tragically nine months ago, has been all but forgotten.
Angellika Arndt, 7, died May 26, the day after she was restrained at a Rice Lake treatment center because of behavioral problems. Northwest Guidance and Counseling Clinic Inc. and staff member Bradley Ridout will be sentenced in Barron County court today after pleading no contest in December to charges of negligent abuse.

"You see decals, ribbons, 'Remember the hunters' bumper stickers all over the place, but no one seems concerned about the horrendous thing that happened to Angie," said Rick Pelishek, a regional director of Wisconsin Family Ties & Disability Rights.

The organization is a nonprofit advocate group for families with children with emotional disorders.

"The issue isn't just that Angie's gone, but what's wrong here? What went wrong? How can we fix it? But instead of looking for answers, it's as if what happened to Angie has just faded away," he said.

While the Northwest Counseling facility in Rice Lake closed after Angie's death, 12 other Northwest centers -- there are none in Minnesota -- remain open. But that doesn't mean Northwest has forgotten what happened last May, Dennison Tucker, the company's president, said recently.

"The trauma that her death caused to people connected with Angie and to people in our program was overwhelming," Tucker said. "This has been a very powerful experience for me. It's a personal tragedy. I've worked in the mental health field for 32 years. I've spent my whole life dedicated to saving kids. This is heartbreaking."

According to court records and state reports:

Angie's birth parents gave her up in Milwaukee. She bounced from one foster home to the next until the Pavlick family in Ladysmith, Wis., adopted her.

Donna Pavlick declined to be interviewed for this story, but in interviews with other news outlets last year, she described Angie as "normal" -- a child who camped, played, listened to music and had birthday parties at McDonald's.

Court documents say that Angie suffered from numerous problems that included hyperactivity, mood disorder, attention deficit disorder and reactive attachment disorder. She had temper tantrums and was taking medication.

She attended Northwest's Rice Lake Day Treatment center, beginning last April 24, at the suggestion of a counselor. On May 25, the day before she died, Angie was restrained for violating rules, according to the day care records obtained by Wisconsin Family Ties.

Ridout pinned her on the floor in a choke hold until she turned blue, according to court records. She was restrained on nine occasions, according to a state report. Medical staff at the facility said later that no child should be put in such a "control" hold.

Ridout, who pleaded no contest in December to a misdemeanor charge of negligent abuse of a patient, could not be reached to comment. He is no longer employed by Northwest Counseling, Tucker said. Northwest Guidance and Counseling Clinic Inc. pleaded no contest to one felony count of negligent abuse to a resident.

Tucker said that Northwest has 180 clients in its day treatment programs, many of them high-risk children. The company's goal is to "try and maintain zero control holds, to eliminate physical restraint," he said.

"There's nothing I can do to change May 25," Tucker said. "I wish I could. All we can do now is make responsible changes."

Liz Davis, 53, of Chetek, Wis., has a grandson who attended the Rice Lake Day center.

"Maybe people don't talk about [Angie] much because she wasn't in Rice Lake very long," Davis said. "Maybe because she had a mental disability, people don't want to remember her.

"There's a city park that's been made a tribute to the hunters," she said of the six deer hunters who were shot to death on Nov. 21, 2004, after a confrontation with another hunter, Chai Soua Vang. Said Davis:

"There's nothing for Angie. We can't forget kids like her."


Paul Levy • 612-673-4419 • plevy@startribune.com

9:40 AM  

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