Maryland survivors of sexual abuse in juvenile detention centers call for justice
Maryland sexual abuse survivors and advocates rallied at Baltimore's War Memorial Plaza on Wednesday to demand justice after they say the state failed them during their time in juvenile detention centers.
Alleged victims shared their stories of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of staff within the juvenile justice system. Many have come forward after the Child Victims Act was made into law in 2023, which eliminated the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases.
Hundreds at the rally called for the state to take accountability.
"How many more survivors need to come forward before the state finally takes responsibility? How many more children have to suffer before a change is made?" an alleged victim said.
A statement from the Department of Juvenile Services reads, "DJS takes allegations of sexual abuse of children in our care with utmost seriousness…. DJS notes that all the claims brought under the Maryland Child Victims Act involve allegations from many decades ago. Beyond that, DJS will not comment on this pending litigation."
Abuse claims under Child Victims Act
About 3,500 alleged victims have filed lawsuits against the state since the Child Victims Act was imposed.
Most notably, hundreds of lawsuits were filed over sexual abuse claims against the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which spanned nearly 80 years.
In April 2023, The Maryland Attorney General's Office released a 450-page report that identified 156 priests, deacons, Catholic teachers and seminarians within the Archdiocese accused of abusing more than 600 victims. The incidents detailed in the report date back to the 1940s.
"The state is not above the law," said Jerry Block, a lawyer for sexual abuse survivors. "The state is just as accountable as the Catholic church or any other institution that perpetrated sexual abuse."
Recently, more than a dozen former students at McDonogh School, a Baltimore County private school, came forward in a new complaint, alleging they were sexually abused.
The alleged victims claim to have suffered sexual abuse by former dean Alvin Levy, former Spanish teacher Robert Creed, and two more faculty members while attending the school between the 1960s and 1980s.
WJZ previously highlighted one of four lawsuits against McDonogh, claiming the school was aware of the abuse and failed to protect students.
The lawsuit details the former student's account of being sexually assaulted several times by former dean Levy when he was 10 years old.
"Laughing as we tore each other apart"
Elaxus Massey, who told WJZ she was placed in the Maryland Juvenile Detention System in 2012, said they were held without food for punishment, had hygiene products kept from them, and were forced to fight each other.
"[They were] placing bets on who would win, laughing as we tore each other apart," Massey said.
Massey says the children at the detention facility purposely acted out because it was safer than being a favorite.
"Those were the kids who stopped talking as much, those were the kids who flinched when they were touched," Massey said. "The ones who got special treatment, no child should ever receive."
Massey hopes the state will step up and take the blame for what she and so many others went through.
"Justice is not negotiable You have the power to make this right," Massey said.
"She called me a throwaway"
Nalisha Gibbs told WJZ Investigates she was abused as a child in 1989 and 1990 at the state-run Thomas Waxter Children's Center in Laurel, which has since closed.
She had planned on attending the rally in Baltimore.
"That it's OK to come forward," Gibbs said. "It's OK to scream until you are heard. You deserve to be heard and you deserve your story to be told, and you deserve the healing that comes from it as well."
According to her complaint against the state, Gibbs was sexually assaulted daily by a female staff member, then threatened that she would never go home if she reported the abuse.
"She called me a throwaway," Gibbs said. "They wouldn't believe me because I'm a 'throwaway.' That's what she referred to children like me. We were throwaways to society pretty much."
