Dozier School victims could get compensation for abuse they endured

When Ralph Freeman was just a boy, he tried to run.

He was sent at 14 to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a reform school in Florida’s Panhandle for boys who committed crimes large and small.

As he ran through the school’s grounds, thinking he was in a bad dream, a grown man stabbed him in the leg with a railroad spike attached to a pole. Weeks later, other boys who were suffering physical and sexual abuse at the school planned to run away in Atlanta, where they were to attend a basketball game. But Freeman couldn’t — his leg was too injured.

In front of Florida senators on Tuesday, Freeman, now 66, said the things he endured at the Dozier School are the worst he’s seen in his life. He said that he suffers from depression still and that the only people who understand him are other victims — some of whom sat behind him in the committee meeting, eyes welling up.

“This happened on American soil, people,” Freeman said. “This happened in Florida. If any of you want to see what boiling hot water looks like on a kid, the marks are still there.”

Survivors of the Dozier School could soon receive money for the physical and sexual abuse they endured at the state-operated program.

Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, has repeatedly filed legislation seeking to create a fund for the school’s victims, but it never got far off the ground. This year, though, bills are nearing their final stops. House legislators are scheduled to hear the bill, HB 21, in its final committee on Tuesday afternoon. The Senate legislation, SB 24, has one more committee to move through. After passing all its committees, the bills will go to their respective chambers for a full vote, then to Gov. Ron DeSantis for final approval or a veto.

Lawmakers have unanimously voted for the fund at every stop. Some lawmakers appeared to become emotional or at a loss for words on Tuesday after hearing the surviving men testify about their lasting trauma — having boiling water poured on them, being beaten with a leather strap, fearing being raped by staff members at night. They spoke about the dozens of boys who went into the school and never left, who are still missing today.

University of South Florida anthropologists unearthed dozens of unmarked graves on the school’s campus. Over the years, a group of men who call themselves the “White House Boys,” a reference to the facility where beatings often took place, have spoken out about the wrongs that occurred. Florida officially apologized to the victims in 2017, and the Dozier School closed in 2011.

Richard Huntly, who was sent to the Dozier School at 11, has been advocating for the victims for 15 years and said he just asks for justice.

“I will bring all of my dead brothers on my shoulders; if I’m raised up they will be first,” Huntly said. “I promise I will do my best that they will never be forgotten again.”

The bill would create a program in the Department of Legal Affairs to review applications for the fund for living victims — families of victims that have since died cannot collect the money. The proposed fund would also apply to children who attended the Okeechobee School, which the state created because of overflow at the Dozier School.

By getting money from the fund, a victim would not be entitled to collect any other compensation related to their time at the school.

Victims would have to submit reasonable proof they attended the schools between 1940 and 1975 and would need to attest that they were a victim of mental, physical or sexual abuse.

It’s not clear how many of the men that suffered abuse are still alive. The legislation does not currently specify how much money the state would allocate. Rouson said no amount of money could be enough.

“It’s about the children,” he said. “Let us by a vote today answer their screams.”

Florida has paid out for decades-old wrongs before. In 1994, Gov. Lawton Chiles signed a bill to create a fund to compensate victims of the Rosewood massacre, in which white Floridians burned down a predominantly Black town and drove residents out.

This story was originally published February 20, 2024 at 3:56 PM.