This is the faith-based version of tough love.
The director of a Christian boot camp and an employee were arrested Friday for allegedly dragging a 15-year-old girl behind a van after she fell behind the group during a morning run, authorities said.A witness to the dragging said that she saw the victim being pulled along by Flowers in the van on her stomach at least three times.Charles Eugene Flowers and Stephanie Bassitt of San Antonio-based Love Demonstrated Ministries, a 32-day boot camp, were arrested on aggravated assault charges for the alleged June 12 incident.
The two are accused of tying the girl to the van with a rope then dragging her, according to an arrest affidavit filed Wednesday by the Nueces County Sheriff’s Department.
Flowers refers to himself as “the commandant.”
BTW, the camp has been hailed in the past by the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
One of the coalition partners, Love Demonstrated Ministries (LDMI), is a faith-based organization which focuses on youth offenders, gang members, and high risk youth. Over the past three years, 135 of 165 young offenders entering its Life Skills and Parenting Camp have graduated from LDMI, a success rate of 82 percent.Is part of the “success” abusing young people in its care?
29 Responses to “Christian boot camp pastor accused of dragging girl behind a van”
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Ummm, that’s nice that 82% of your campers have graduated. How many of them stop being youth offenders after that, and how many leave more fucked up because of the abuse?
Even by today’s dodgy standards, that “success rate” is shockingly worthless.
Okay, exactly how is it “love” in ANY way, dragging someone behind a motor vehicle?! You think I’d know better by now, but I’m still shocked and disgusted to hear how Group X “lovingly” uses what are plainly torture methods in order to “straighten out” troubled teens/the mentally ill/queer/insert name of group in need of “straightening out”.
Amusingly enough, the Google ads up top are all touting various self-defense options. Heh.
Can I tell you how happy I am that my tax dollars go to support this Christian organization.
Faith-based my ass. Theocracy sucks. Why do these asses hate America so much?
For every good story about a church doing something, there sees to be five like this one. It’s little wonder that I waver between apathy and outright disdain for religious organizations.
Of course, we’re only supposed to worry about there not being Christian prayer in public schools, about the Muslim faith as a whole, and about the lack of Ten Commandments displays in the public squares.
Something like abuse in Christian camps…it’s teh librul medja blowing things out of proportion.
/s
Perhaps every asswipe who whinges about his or her tax dollars going to support welfare or Medicaid or signs printed in English and Spanish is balanced by decent people outraged that our tax dollars are going to support ineffective abstinence education, misguided “faith-based organizations,” and ill-advised military misadventures. Can I Hate What My Tax Dollars Are Being Spent On credits be traded like carbon credits? At least until there’s a Democratic administration in place?
Pam asks:
Yes.
This is another case of simple answers to simple (rhetorical) questions.
I would like to see the term “faith-based” replaced with the more accurate “religion-based”. Won’t happen, but I’d like for it to. The fact that this funding avenue has squeaked through the government with nary a slap on the wrist infuriates me.
I really cannot wrap my head around the idea of a “Christian Bootcamp.” Is R. Lee Ermey
I’m having Kubrican visions of Catholic school girls marching in a circle reciting, “This is my Bible, this is my gun, this is for praying, this is for fun.”
And the drill Sergeant said, “Where’re you from boy?”
“Sir, I’m from Texas, Sir.”
“There ain’t nothing but indebted oil men and half assed protestants in Texas, son and you don’t look like no tycoon to me.”
I’m mean really what the hell.
It’s the Bush Agenda and faith has nothing to do with it.
The Bush Agenda is to transfer as much money as possible from the US Treasury to Bush supporters, plain and simple.
These “camps” scare the shit out of me. Read the book Jesusland. I don’t remember the author’s name but it’s her memoir about being sent to one of these camps in Jamaica (or somewhere in the Caribbean) and it’s freaking terrifying, the things they do to the kids there.
The scary thing is that if someone opened up a place like this and it wasn’t faith-based, they would find it virtually impossible to get government funding but slap the word “ministries” on it and GWB can’t get money to you fast enough. Disgusting.
How many of them stop being youth offenders after that, and how many leave more fucked up because of the abuse?
You don’t go back to a life of crime if you kill yourself. I’m sure that suicide might pad their numbers a bit.
…Love Demonstrated Ministries (LDMI), is a faith-based organization which focuses on youth offenders, gang members, and high risk youth.“
Oooh, nice. Boot camp? Gonna turn those with a propensity for violence into soldiers of their lord. Sweet. Looks as though we’ll be “fighting them here” as well as “over there”, after all.
I would like to see the term “faith-based” replaced with the more accurate “religion-based”. - car
However, a smart liberal would do very well to attack “faith based” programs … “my opponant believes in ‘faith based’ programs … I believe in ‘evidence based programs’ … programs for which there is evidence that they work rather than throwing money at people and hoping they’ll do something good with it”. OTOH, you cannot attack a “religion-based” program without being tarred as “anti-religious”.
But I’m sure the dragging was done with Christian love and compassion.
Oh, God. Oh, God, I hope she’s okay.
Flowers refers to himself as “the commandant.”
I SEE NOTHEENK!
Actually, there’s quite a few non-faith-based programs of this kind, many based offshore so as to avoid American laws against abuse and torture (sound familiar?) Google the phrase “Tranquility Bay”. From what I’ve heard, most leave the program so broken that they’re unable to exist as individuals - they just stare at the floor, afraid of everything.DAS, can you please go work for the DNC now? Or whisper into their heads in the night? Or something? That seems to be one of the Dems’ biggest problems, that they have no idea how to use language to frame things to their own advantage.
Not many stories do this, but this one makes me actually physically feel like throwing up.
Did she survive?
Hey there Meri, you should probably hold the contents of your stomach until all the facts come out.
If she hadn’t survived, the charges would be more than aggravated assault.
According to the last paragraph the young lady in question was hospitalized.
Since the assault took place about 2 months ago, one hopes that she was discharged after making a full recovery or sent home to finish said recovery.
Question — is this a court-ordered kind of thing (A la “Scared Straight”), or something voluntary people send their kids to when they exhibit “problem” behaviors?
Not that one is any better than the other, really, but I’m having a hard time picturing parents that would do this to their kids. Oh, wait, no, I know several people who got sent away to programs not too much friendlier than this when their parents found out that they shoplifted, drank under age, smoked weed once (maybe, or had friends who did, or liked Cheech & Chong too much), etc. So no, actually I’m not surprised at all that people can be this barbaric to their own children.
CPS should take custody of teenagers who are sent to these camps, as a matter of course.
If you really want to be sickened by this whole faith-based crap, read With God On Their Side by Esther Kaplan. It is WAY worse than you think.
OK, Byron, what “facts” do you think could possibly justify this kind of abuse? Lay ‘em on us.
I’m trying real hard to have a degree of sympathy for the parents who might feel that they have no other options but to send their “out of control” kids to such places. I’m trying to view the parents, as much as the kids, as the victims of a horrible scam, one in which the kids are forced into compliance with the scam to keep the parents ignorant of the realities. (If you haven’t read the stories linked to above, they’ll curl your hair if it’s straight, and straighten it if it’s curly.) But in the Age of Google, I’m just not quite able to get there…
WTF is wrong with these people?