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| Sergeant Brian Burzynski |
The Easiest of Prey
If children, as a group, make ideal targets for predatory abusers and exploiters, then incarcerated juveniles undoubtedly make the easiest of that targeted prey.Subject to manipulation and intimidation, with limited access to legal recourse or independent monitoring and underrepresented in the political system, these children are easily forgotten by the public. The pleas from juvenile inmates generally go unheard. The very real threat of retribution by the authorities is sufficient to prevent any victims from coming forward.
So, when incidents are reported- and followed up on by authorities- it is generally an exceptional case.
In February of 2005, Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski received reports from a volunteer instructor at the West Texas School, maximum security, all-male correctional facility in Pyote, Texas.
One of many facilities scattered across the state, The West Texas school was built to house boys who had been in trouble with the law. The teacher who had contacted the Texas Ranger had had a crisis of conscience when several of his students had come forward with stories of sexual misconduct by the assistant superintendent. According to sources:
[The teacher] knew it would be futile to go to school authorities—his parents, also volunteers, had previously told the superintendent of their own suspicions, and were "brow beat" for making allegations without proof —so the next morning he called the Texas Rangers. A sergeant named Brian Burzynski made the ninety-minute drive from his office in Fort Stockton that afternoon. "I saw kids with fear in their eyes," he testified later, "kids who knew they were trapped in an institution where the system would not respond to their cries for help."
