WASHINGTON STATE: END ALL SEQUEL CONTRACTS.

Cornelius Frederick, a sixteen-year-old Black child, was killed for throwing a sandwich at
Lakeside Academy, a Michigan institution that was part of a nationwide chain of residential
facilities run by Sequel Youth and Family Services. A video of the April 29, 2020 incident begins
with a cafeteria food fight breaking out, which prompts a group of staff to tackle Cornelius
Frederick to the ground where they violently hold him down for over ten minutes. The video ends
with staff administering CPR after trying to prop this child’s completely limp body into a sitting
position. He was hospitalized and died two days later.1 Three Sequel staff members have been
charged criminally for Cornelius Fredericks’s death, and Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer
called for no Sequel-affiliated facility to be licensed by the State of Michigan.2
Sequel is a private-equity backed, for-profit company whose staff have been reported to
physically, sexually, and emotionally abuse children in its facilities across the country. 3
Although Washington does not have any Sequel facilities in-state, Washington pays as much as
$300 to $800 as an average daily rate per child for placements in out-of-state Sequel facilities
that market their services for behavioral health conditions like autism and post-traumatic stress
disorder.

1
Tyler Kingkade, “Video shows fatal restraint of Cornelius Frederick, 16, at Michigan foster facility,” NBC News, July
7, 2020. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-fatal-restraint-cornelius-fredericks-16-michigan-
foster-facility-n1233122#:~:text=Gretchen%20Whitmer%2C%20a%20Democrat%2C%20has%20asked%
20the%20department,that%20Sequel%20no%20longer%20works%20with%20the%20state.
2
See, e.g., Taylor Romine & Anna Sturla, “Three staff members charged in death of 16-year-old who went into
cardiac arrest after being restrained at facility,” CNN, June 25, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/25/us/teen-
restraint-death-staff-charged-michigan-trnd/index.html; “Governor Whitmer Statement on Youth Death at
Lakeside for Children in Kalamazoo,” June 20, 2020, https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/0,9309,7-387-
90499_90640-532682--,00.html.
3
See Eileen O’Grady, “Understaffed, Unlicensed, and Untrained: Behavioral Health Under Private Equity,” Private
Equity Stakeholder Project, September 2020, https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PESP-
behavioral-health-9-2020.pdf (citing several sources, e.g., Jessica Miller, "After a riot, increasing violence and now
sex abuse allegations, Red Rock Canyon school will close," Salt Lake Tribune, July 10, 2019,
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/07/10/after-riot-increasing/; “Bennett Haeberle, "State threatens to revoke
license of Sequel Pomegranate, citing failure to create safe environment," WBNS, June 22, 2020,
https://www.10tv.com/article/news/investigations/10-investigates/state-threatens-to-revoke-license-of-sequel-
pomegranate/530-589e77b2-640a-40d2-b30a-df5cddedb584; "$4.5M lawsuit says child was repeatedly raped at
Kingston Academy," WVLT 8, February 19, 2020, https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/4M-lawsuit-says-child-was-
raped-at-Kingston-Academy-568008361.html; “Report on Sequel Youth and Family Services of Courtland,”
Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program (ADAP), July 2, 2020, https://adap.ua.edu/uploads/5/7/8/9/57892141/
sequel_attachments__a_b_and_c__r_.pdf); see also “Second Utah facility for troubled teens to close in a month,”
KUTV, July 16, 2019, https://kutv.com/news/local/second-utah-facility-for-trouble-teens-to-close-in-a-month;
David Struett, “Employee charged with choking special needs student at mental health care facility in Aurora,”
Chicago Sun Times, January 28, 2020, https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/1/28/21111837/jacquetta-hill-
charged-choking-special-needs-student-aurora-northern-illinois-academy; “Worker at juvenile mental health
facility in Aurora gets 10 years for sex assault of child,” Chicago Tribune, February 3, 2019, https://www.
chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct-abn-aurora-sex-assault-st-0225-story.html.
Washington youth have spoken out about their own painful experiences with abusive and
unjustified restraints in Sequel institutions. Jesus Lopez, an alumni of Washington’s foster care
system, recalled that he “blacked out” while Sequel staff restrained him, while another foster
youth, Quatezz Wrice, described his “nightmare” experiences with “really painful” restraints,
remembering how in “a few of them I got slammed on my head, and I passed out.”4 One young
woman from Washington, Kathie Nguyen, described how Sequel staff “would lift her arms up
during a restraint, ‘like chicken,’ until it hurt so bad she would fight back before she was slammed
to the floor.”5
Yet, Washington has persisted in sending young people to Sequel facilities scattered around
the U.S., in spite of the Department of Children Youth and Families’ (DCYF) goal to bring all
foster youth home from out-of-state institutions by April 2020.6 As DCYF Secretary Ross Hunter
has rightly acknowledged, our state incarcerates and separates Black and Indigenous youth
from their families at shamefully disproportionate rates,7 and in turn disproportionately fails to
provide them with stable homes.8 Rather than providing for in-state services that will help them
and their families heal, Washington has continued to ship children with the greatest needs to
Sequel institutions, despite this company’s appalling track record and growing evidence that
confining youth in for-profit institutions is neither safe nor cost-effective.9

4
Allegra Abramo, “Head trauma, painful restraints: WA foster kids face abuse out of state,” Crosscut, February 5
2019, https://crosscut.com/equity/2019/02/head-trauma-painful-restraints-wa-foster-kids-face-abuse-out-state;
Susannah Frame, “Report finds prison-like conditions for Washington foster kids sent out of state,” King 5 News,
October 17, 2018, https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/tacoma-foster-child-says-being-sent-to-out-of-state-
institution-was-a-nightmare/281-605444408.
5
Wilson Criscione, “A new report reveals dismal conditions in an Iowa institution where Washington state ships
foster kids,” Inlander, October 18, 2018, https://www.inlander.com/spokane/a-new-report-reveals-dismal-
conditions-in-an-iowa-institution-where-washington-state-ships-foster-kids/Content?oid=13516041.
6
Austin Jenkins, “Washington reduces number of foster youth out of state, but in-state beds still lacking,”
Northwest News Network, August 13, 2019, https://www.kuow.org/stories/washington-reduces-number-of-
foster-youth-out-of-state-but-in-state-beds-still-lacking.
7
See Ross Hunter, “The Murder of George Floyd” June 7, 2020, https://rosshunter.com/2020/06/the-murder-of-
george-floyd.
8
See e.g. “Washington State DCYF Racial Disparity Indices Report (2018)” https://www.dcyf.wa.gov/sites/default/
files/pdf/reports/Washington_State_DCYF_Racial_Disparity_Indices_Report_2018.pdf; “DCYF Use of Hotels and
Offices as Placements,” Washington State Office of Family and Children Ombuds, August 2020, https://ofco.wa.gov
/sites/default/files/2020-09/Placement_Exceptions_Dashboard_August_2020.pdf; compare general population
demographic data e.g. at https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/WA with detention data, e.g. “Washington State
2018 Juvenile Detention Annual Report” at p.12, Washington State Center for Court Research, http://www.courts.
wa.gov/subsite/wsccr/docs/2018_DetentionReport_Final.pdf.
9
See Curtis Gilbert, Lauren Dake, “Youth were abused here,” American Public Media Reports, September 28, 2020,
https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/09/28/for-profit-sequel-facilities-children-abused?fbclid=IwAR0Vzd05
SdQc8GMSpjJzGdMKohyGmbLSiMIwWmTSpcloLpu08j0ovVdUjdI; “Confining Youth for Profit Policy Platform,”
National Juvenile Justice Network, September 2015 Update, https://www.njjn.org/our-work/confining-youth-for-
profit--policy-platform.

WASHINGTON STATE: END ALL SEQUEL CONTRACTS - 2

We call on Washington’s Governor Jay Inslee to put an end to this. Washington should not
entrust an abysmally failing company like Sequel with the precious lives of its children. No
Washington agency should be permitted to add to Sequel’s profits with taxpayer money.
Governor Inslee must direct all Washington State health and child-serving agencies to avoid and
dissociate from this company. Washington should put an end to its relationship with Sequel in
order to protect children from the abuse that Cornelius Frederick and far too many other children
have suffered at the hands of Sequel staff.

Signed,
ACLU of Washington
Kendrick Washington II, Youth Policy Counsel

Disability Rights Washington

Susan Kas, Staff Attorney

Carney Gillespie PLLP

Christopher Carney, Attorney

King County Department of Public Defense

Anita Khandelwal, Director

Law Office of Julie Kellogg-Mortensen

Julie Kellogg-Mortensen, Attorney

Legal Counsel for Youth and Children

Erin Lovell, Executive Director

Mockingbird Society
Annie Blackledge, Executive Director

National Center for Youth Law

Leecia Welch, Senior Director, Legal Advocacy and Child Welfare

Northwest Justice Project

Deborah Dorfman, Managing Attorney

Office of Developmental Disabilities Ombuds

Betty Schwieterman, Ombuds

WASHINGTON STATE: END ALL SEQUEL CONTRACTS - 3

Partners for Our Children
Laurie Lippold, Public Policy Director

Skookum Kids
Ray Deck III, Founding Director

TeamChild
Dan Ophardt, Staff Attorney

The Arc of Washington State

Stacy Dym, Executive Director

Washington Association for Children and Families

Jill May, Executive Director

Washington Defender Association

Christie Hedman, Executive Director

Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Amy Hirotaka, Executive Director

Washington State Developmental Disabilities Council

Jeremy Norden Paul, Executive Director

WASHINGTON STATE: END ALL SEQUEL CONTRACTS - 4