Five Shuman Juvenile Detention Center guards and the father of a Penn Hills boy were criminally charged yesterday as a result of a "scared straight" incident at the lockup Sunday in which the 13-year-old boy was beaten.

Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Charles Smith attends a preliminary hearing at the Municipal Courts Building in front of District Judge Rob Wyda last night. Click photo for larger image. Previous coverage 'Scared straight' bid goes awry

Police said the boy's father, Anthony Donald Sr., of Penn Hills, placed the youngster, who has never been charged with a crime, in the hands of two friends who are Shuman guards. Donald was charged with misdemeanor counts of conspiracy and child endangerment.

Donald Jr. said the guards ordered him to strip in a public place and put on a uniform. When he refused, he said, four guards forced him to the ground, beat him and stripped off his pants.

Four of the guards, called "child care workers," are charged with unlawful restraint and false imprisonment, which are felonies.

They are Charles Smith, 57, of Point Breeze; Duayne Nesmith, 36, of Midland; Saaid McFadden, 30, of Homewood, and Richard Bratcher, 35, of the Hill District. A fifth guard, Donald's friend Michael Ginyard, 38, of Point Breeze, is charged with misdemeanor counts of official repression and conspiracy.

In addition to those two misdemeanor charges, Smith, Nesmith and McFadden face misdemeanor charges of simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, terroristic threats and child endangerment. Bratcher faces all of those as well, except reckless endangerment.

County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt explained the charges: "The boy was kept against his will. They assaulted him to keep him there. They conspired with one another." He said the guards face different charges based on their culpability.

All of the guards were suspended yesterday without pay.

Nesmith, McFadden, Ginyard and Smith were arraigned last night and released on their own recognizance.

The boy's mother, Nicole Finney, of Penn Hills, who is separated from the youngster's father, said yesterday that she was glad to hear of the arrests. "I just want them to be held accountable for what they did to my son," she said.

She was upset that the boy's father was charged, saying she is sure he did not intend for his friends, guards Ginyard and McFadden, to harm the boy.

She said when her own father told Donald Sr. the extent of the youngster's injuries, including bruises to the chest, spasms in his back and swelling to his neck, the father expressed regret.

Still, Finney said, she is relieved that county police detectives Edward Fisher and Gregory Matthews filed charges against the guards. She said she believes that if they brutalized a boy like her son who has never committed a crime, they could do the same to other youngsters at Shuman.

"I fear that they may be doing it to other boys," she said.

Finney said Ginyard, who has been a family friend for 15 years, called her earlier this week to tell her nothing bad happened.

"He said, 'All we were doing is trying to scare him straight.' He said he used the tactic on his own son."

Shuman Advisory Board member Mary K. McDonald, a Downtown attorney, said this week she was concerned the incident wasn't isolated. "I would have to wonder if it happened to that young man if there are rogue guards who instituted that sort of thing, and this is the only one that came to light."

Shuman Director Alex Wilson said there is no "scared straight" program at the detention center, though tours for school children are sometimes conducted with official notice and permission.

"More than two years ago, a policy went out outlining the parameters for tours, indicating there were to be no in-your-face confrontations," Wilson said, "Scared-straight yelling or putting on Shuman clothing, that is absolutely prohibited."

Moffatt said yesterday no other incidents have been reported to county police. "I would classify it as very unusual," he said.

Still, McDonald said the incident Sunday, as described by the victim, would require the knowledge and cooperation of numerous Shuman workers. In addition to those the boy said beat and choked him, threw him against a wall, spit and cursed at him, other workers would have had to buzz the boy through security gates and would have witnessed his presence on cameras throughout the building.

McDonald said in 2001 the state Legislature took the board's power away and gave it to the county chief executive. Now the group is without authority to remedy such a situation, she said, and it has not met since September and does not have enough members left to make a quorum.

"Before we could have demanded firings in a case like this," she said, "but not now."

The State Department of Public Welfare controls conditions at Shuman to the extent that it can deny the facility a license to operate. It is investigating, but Shufman did not alert the department to the incident, as it is required to do if a child who is a resident of the facility is injured.

Welfare Department spokeswoman Stacey Ward said Shuman does not have to file an incident report on the Donald case because Donald was not a Shuman resident.

Ward, whose agency licenses every juvenile detention center in Pennsylvania said, "We have never experienced a situation like this before."

Wilson said the center is equipped with video cameras, but they do not record. They simply allow a guard to monitor hallways and rooms in the center.

Because videotapes of an incident like the one Sunday could provide important evidence, he said he is researching the cost of outfitting the system to record.

"It would improve both staff and kids' safety," he said.

Both Moffatt and Common Pleas Judge Robert E. Colville, who worked in juvenile court just after he was elected to the bench, said they had friends who asked them to put the fear of the law into wayward children.

Both said they had serious reservations and would talk with youngsters but nothing more.