The handcuffed death of KD, the 14-year-old boy with heart problems

2022-03-05T22:44:27.714Z

Justice and the Ombudsman investigate the death of a boy in the Zambrana juvenile center in Valladolid

KD was 14 years old when police found him wandering around Valladolid on November 29.

He died three months later in a juvenile facility.

The boy, Tunisian, needed an interpreter to explain that he arrived by train from Switzerland, where he had undergone surgery for a gastric problem.

He was alone in an unknown country.

The Junta de Castilla y León assumed guardianship of him and referred him to a Valladolid youth residence.

His aggressiveness led to his transfer to a juvenile center in Zamora, where he remained the same, until arriving at the Zambrana in Valladolid, a strict internment center.

There he died this Thursday night after being reduced and handcuffed for another violent episode.

The Family Council insists that he suffered from heart disease and that the performance of the center was "impeccable".

The Ombudsman,

The death has overwhelmed the Zambrana, which has two modules to treat minors based on their file: the socialization part, where the deceased lived in shared chalets, and the reform part, more rigid and guarded.

The usual huddles of employees resting or smoking outside have become single-issue, veiled comments: "What happened?"

Nobody knows anything beyond what is published in the media, Zambrana sources point out.

"The atmosphere is like a funeral home, the workers hang out and the kids ask a lot, because a death confirms their theory that they are in a prison and the guards are violent," these informants indicate.

KD, a problematic minor with frequent episodes of violence, suffered an outbreak around 10 p.m. on Thursday and, as established by the protocols when dialogue and negotiation are not enough, the three monitors monitoring him notified the guards.

A couple of guards, of the six who work at the same time in security, appeared to put order.

The "physical restraint" did not serve to placate the boy and he opted for "mechanical" means: handcuffs.

Sources of the investigation point out that he put the handcuffs on him, he relaxed, they were removed and he returned to the charge.

So they put them back on, he was subdued,

and lost consciousness.

He never got it back;

and her body was left on the floor of that "common room" where the council ensures that the scene occurred.

Her body was raised around two in the morning and thus began a judicial cycle that will try to determine what caused the death.

The Family Counselor of the Junta de Castilla y León, Isabel Blanco, reiterated on Friday that everything had been done correctly and that KD suffered from heart disease that led to collapse.

The autopsy, which according to Family spokesmen "could take weeks", will show the causes.

On the other hand, there is no official version of why the boy, who they insist was in poor health, went into a violent crisis.

The authorities already have the Zambrana report, which highlights that on previous occasions force was used to placate the young Tunisian, and will clarify the hours of the action and death.

The internal protocol, to which EL PAÍS has agreed and which cites Organic Law 5/2000 on the criminal responsibility of minors, requires that interventions be guided by "proportionality and exceptionality."

“Serious behavior problems”

The investigation comes up against the complex personal situation of the boy, whose father is in Sicily (Italy) and his mother in Tunisia.

She has already been informed and the Board has offered to assume the burial in her native country or bury him in Valladolid.

Tax sources insist that under the label of "unaccompanied foreign minor" as KD there are "boys with tremendous human dramas, terrible conditions or unstructured families" that push these disruptive attitudes.

KD, according to those familiar with his history, had not committed any criminal offense for which, as a minor, he ended up in the Zambrana reform area, a block of buildings in the shape of an E. His "serious behavioral problems" caused him to be admitted in the socialization part, with chalets where groups of young people live together to try to correct,

with social educators, those attitudes.

Those halls or those rooms with concrete beds and shelves so that they cannot be moved do not have cameras, despite the fact that the law allows it.

This makes it difficult to know if it was done right or wrong.

"In principle there is nothing anomalous," say sources from the Prosecutor's Office.

Misgivings come from Zambrana.

There are voices there, who ask for anonymity, who criticize "abuses" in interventions that require force.

They also assure that these guards, who are managed in this center by the Vasbe company, tend to subject minors face down, a practice that is discouraged due to the risk of suffocation involved, and that the Ombudsman censors his National Mechanism for the prevention of torture before episodes of “mechanical restraints”.

The Ombudsman also recommends that these proceedings be recorded.

The new Children's Law has prohibited previous practices such as tying hands and feet, even with straps, to control minors.

A precedent for what happened in the Zambrana is that of Iliass Tahiri, 18, who suffocated to death in 2019 at the Tierras de Oria center in Almería.

The cameras showed that five guards, after tying him up, put him face down on a bed.

The judge filed the case alleging "accidental violent death" despite the fact that the protocol was not used properly.

The Valladolid staff, like the Almeria staff at the time, closed ranks: "This could have happened to us."

Another thing, they admit, is if the guards went too far with KD The three monitors and the two guards, for the moment, have not returned to the facilities or say anything: "Perhaps we will not see them again."