Massachusetts News
By Edward G. Oliver

January 5--Eric Bliecken, unsuccessful Republican challenger to U.S. Rep. Delahunt, took Tarri for an independent physical and psychological examination while she was on the run in 1998. Bliecken heard about Tarri through contacts and took up her cause.

In a guest commentary published in the October 7, 1999 Register, a local newspaper, Bliecken wrote that when he first met Tarri, she had rug-burns on her face and bruises on her arms and legs from the Key Shelter. He wrote that Tarri was on restriction for 26 of her 28 days of lockdown. "Restriction means the 24-hour chair: from bed to the chair, and back to bed the following night. Please let that sink in; an active, healthy, 14-year-old forced to sit in a chair day after day. Being restrained meant that four adults put on surgical gloves. Two grabbed her arms, tripped her feet and drove her forward. Thus the rug burns on her face. A third grabbed her legs and held them straight out while the fourth, a woman weighing 250 pounds or more, would lie across her back, preventing her from breathing. The day before she escaped, Tarri had an asthma attack during one of these battles and blacked out. Try to understand the torture of having an asthma attack and not being allowed to breathe. She was subsequently transported by ambulance to Cape Cod Hospital." 

Bliecken continued, "I went to the United States Marshal’s office to try to get Tarri into the federal witness protection program. They needed authorization from the United States Attorney, who needed a request from the State Attorney General, Inspector General or some law enforcement agency. None of them would get involved if a judge is involved." 

Bliecken told Massachusetts News, "DSS is a business, it’s in the business of growing. They’re out of business if they don’t seize children. It’s a cash crop. They seize children and warehouse them in foster homes, shelters, mental institutions or adopt them out." 

Bliecken’s assessment of Tarri’s situation was: "As I tried to return Tarri to a safe and normal environment, two factors became painfully clear from the get-go: Constitutional due process had been ignored and there is no oversight on the Care and Protection process. 

"Tarri is kind of like the Cambodian boat people. We saw the people packed into little boats in the South China Sea, but we never saw the horror of the holocaust inside Cambodia. You only saw a glimpse of the lucky ones who were the boat people. Tarri is the lucky one who stuck her head up for two-and-a-half months and people heard her story. We have literally thousands of children locked down who we’ll never see again." 
 

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