Bonus: Locked up and treated ‘like I’m a dog'

The Promise

Nashville Public Radio

Society & Culture

4.9 • 777 Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2023

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

Quinterrius Frazier was 15 years old when he was arrested for aggravated robbery and held in the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center. When staff said he was being disruptive — flashing gang signs and rapping, they claimed — he was placed in solitary confinement.

It’s been almost seven years now, and Quinterrius still feels the effects of being locked up in a cell for 23 hours a day — he has trouble with small spaces, and he needs constant stimulation. Trauma has a way of lingering like that.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Mariba Knight's new four-part series, The Kids of Rutherford County is rolling out now.
0:05.7	It's a partnership between serial productions, The New York Times, ProPublica, and WPLN, Nashville Public Radio.
0:12.8	Today, we have a bonus offering. In the series, Mariba tracked down more than two dozen young people who were arrested and jailed as children in Rutherford County.
0:23.2	One young man touched almost every aspect of her reporting.
0:27.8	When Quintarius Frazier was 15 years old, he was arrested for aggravated robbery and held in the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center.
0:36.8	When staff said he was being disruptive, flashing gang signs and rapping, they claimed,
0:42.0	he was placed in solitary confinement, where jail staff stripped everything out of his cell,
0:47.3	placed a board over his window, and left him with nothing but a Bible and a cup.
0:53.0	I'm sitting in there just looking at myself thinking, like, a lot of crazy bad thoughts,
1:00.4	a lot of crazy bad thoughts.
1:02.4	It's like I wanted to die, like I didn't even want to be in there.
1:08.2	Growing up, Quinterias had been in and out of juvie, and he frequently wound up in solitary, once for eight days straight.
1:17.2	I ain't even think it was wrong because I was so getting immune to it.
1:20.7	But when I told what happened or whatever to my lawyer and stuff, he was like, wow, are you serious?
1:28.4	And then it kind of clicked that, like, wow, that is.
1:31.0	Like, they're treating me like I'm a dog or like I'm a animal or something.
1:37.1	Eventually, his lawyers argued that what Rutherford County was doing to Quintarius
1:41.9	amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and they got a federal
1:45.9	judge to issue an injunction and order Quinterius out of solitary.
1:54.2	It's been almost seven years now, and Quinterius still feels the effects of what happened.
2:00.3	Trauma has a way of lingering like that.
2:03.6	I don't like to be in those places.
	...

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