on the gulf of mexico, there's a small town known as the seafood capital of alabama. tristan and lori broad rick are building a life there, working for her family's carpet-cleaning company of young newly wids in love, they're expecting their first child as they're trying to move past the traumas of their

own childhoods. >> i've been to around 20 different programs in the state of alabama. when you get in the foster care system, the main thing they do is bounce you around. >> tristan's mother died when he was 2. >> she got pregnant with me at 13, had me 14 and killed by a drunk driver when she was 16. >> life with his father was unstable. by the time he was 12, he it was a foster child. lori grew up with parents but had mental health challenges and rebelled as a teenager. >> i would sneak out the house and never nothing legal, though. i never had any legal charges done or anything. >> her family couldn't afford the help she needed, so when she was 15 the state stepped in. >> there's money to be made off of kids who have issues. >> tristan and lori didn't know it, but they'd become part of a multi-billion dollar industry, one that promises so house, treat and rehabilitate kids.

these for-profit companies some backed by private equity firms tell government they can help the most vulnerable children, but should they? tonight we investigate one company and show you what can happen to kids when profits become the bottom line. >> we definitely met each other at the right time to help each other in our lives. >> tristan and lori will always be grateful they found each other. >> we got our own apartment now, and the baby will be here in about two, three months, so i definitely see that as one good thing that came out of it. >> they were just two of the thousands of children across america shipped to group homes run by private companies and paid for with public tax dollars. it's all part of a broad shift, services that used to be provided by governments or non-profit organizations are increasingly now farmed out to

for-profit companies. >> i don't believe that the taxpayers in alabama are aware that these programs even exist. basically, these children are out of sight, out of mind. >> kristy johnson is an investigator for the federally-funded advocate at this program. she and her organization investigating sequel. >> the sequel facilities are probably the worst facilities that i've ever seen. >> sequel youth and family services is a national company, one of the biggest of its kind, headquartered in huntsville, alabama. it operates four residential treatment facilities around the state and dozens nationwide. some of the kids they care for are foster children. some have mental health and developmental disorders and others come from the juvenile

justice system. for more than two years, nbc news has been reporting on sequel, the company coming under scrutiny after allegations of abuse, injuries, sexual assaults and even the death of a child. >> these facilities are violent and chaotic places where youth are physically and emotionally abused. >> in alabama, johnson's organization issued a scathing report about the company's programs there. >> what were the living conditions like? >> they were horrible. you know, there's a particular room i recall walking in, and the stench was overwhelming. and, you know, there was feces on the floor. stuck inside the door frame, stuck around the window. >> johnson took us to see get cortland, in a poor, remote part of the state. >> every child's bedroom had a concrete slab on which they slept. they had a mattress that was kind of institutional, if you

will. >> and the problems weren't just living conditions, she says, but rampant violence. >> staff slapping residents against walls, punching and slapping residents in the face. >> allegations of abuse at sequel properties often stem from the use of restraints when staff forcibly prevent residents from moving. >> i've seen a lot of stuff that probably shouldn't have went down as far as staff abusing kids. >> tristan says staff knew how to avoid surveillance cameras, which were not set up in children's bedrooms. >> if you're in a room, they'll straight-out beat the hell out of people. >> have you seen that happen? >> it's happened to me. >> the use of restraint is only when there's an imminent or immediate danger to the client themselves or others. >> this is maryann birmingham, on a video call that frequently froze.

she's senior director of compliance and quality management. >> are kids safe at your facilities? >> i understand your concern with what you've seen with these allegations. and i can assure you we take every step we can to ensure the safety of the clients and staff in our care. >> we repeatedly asked for an on-camera interview. finally, in december 2020, birmingham agreed to speak with me. >> why does sequel believe that housing and caring for and giving therapy to children should be a for-profit business? >> i think when we look at the care we're providing kids we're not looking at whether it should be for-profit or not-for-profit, but that it should be done. >> to be clear, you're profiting. >> we do end up as a for-profit company having a profit line. i don't pretend to be really in tune with how the business model

works. i'm fortunate that i get to work mostly with the children and staff. >> we did ask the company to provide someone who is in tune with the business model, but it declined. we wanted to speak with the company's ceo or maybe this man. >> and, if you look at the difference between people in my industry who make money and who don't make money, it's usually about a 10% margin of. >> his name is jay ripley. he used to be a top executive at jiffy lube, the oil change company. he co-founded sequel in 1999, was once chairman and is still a member of its board. in 2015, ripley spoke at his alma mater, the university of baltimore. >> the reason that we can make that profit is, if you control your staffing level. so you have to have enough staffing to have an excellent program. but you can't have too much staffing to eat up your profit. >> group homes have been around for decades, but welfare reform in the mid '90s made a change, increasing the amount of money that could go to for-profit

companies. government money helped fuel a growing industry and attracted an increasing number of private equity firms that saw an untapped market. >> for-profit companies see there's billions of dollars flowing from the federal government to the states and counties of the for-profit companies saw the amount of money, you know, that's flowing and found a way to tap into it. >> daniel hatcher is a law professor at the university of baltimore. he studies how private industry profits from social safety net programs. >> these are children who need help, desperately need help. it comes an industry where the children are a source of revenue, source of funds, rather than human beings to be served. >> kids are commodities. >> kids are commodities. >> in alabama, the state pays about $300 per day for a child placed in care. records obtained by nbc news show sequel's alabama properties

took in billions over the last three years. >> you have to have enough staffing but you can't have too much staffing to eat up your profit. >> go back there and sleep in your bed where you wake up in the middle of the night and you get bit by a spider. it's freezing cold. when it rains and the sewage is leaking and it smells like poop, tell me how excellent it is. >> when tristan tried to run away from the tuskegee facility he was locked in a seclusion room and couldn't get out to use the restroom. >> they strip need my boxers, put a tiny mattress in there. when you run away, it's automatically 72 hours of sitting in there. >> tristan, you couldn't even get out to go to the bathroom? >> not really. i was banging and kicking on the door trying to get somebody's

attention. nobody would come. it's kind of embarrassing, but i ended up having to use restroom in my own breakfast tray. >> he had to use the restroom for hours and end the up defecating on a food tray. to me, that sounds wrong on so many levels. how is seclusion supposed to be used in a sequel facility? >> i can't comment on thisyoung man's case, but when these allegations are made, they thoroughly investigated either in partnership or by an entity, and i am sorry, i mean, i can't say it enough. and i'm genuine. and i am sorry the client did not get the quality of care that they deserved to get with us. seclusion and restraint are last resorts. they're not meant to be punitive. >> tristan and lori think sequel facilities should be shut down but worry whether former

residents like them will be believed. little do they know that 26 miles away they have an ally, very much listening and talking to sequel. >> my message to them was that this was a systemic problem across their facilities, and if they did not address the issues of restraints within their programs that i was very afraid that a kid was going to be seriously injured or die. >> her message was delivered just months before it happened td try claritin cool mint chewabls for powerful allergy relief plus a cooling sensation. live claritin clear.

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thousands of miles from alabama, one woman has made herself the sharp thorn in the side of sequel, the for-profit company that takes in at-risk youth from around the country. >> these are not treatment programs. these are facilities to warehouse and manage kids

without any treatment expertise, and the goal is to make money, not to make kids healthy. >> sarah gel ser, a mother of five, never thought she'd spend years taking on a multi-billion dollar company. >> my goal was be a teacher. >> and you ended up getting married and and having children. >> we ended up having a son with special needs. >> she became an advocate for her son, eventually becoming state senator. chair of the oregon state committee with oversight of the welfare facility responsible for the state's foster children. >> senate committee on human services will come to order. >> it was early 2019 when senator gelser discovered more than 80 kids had been shipped to facilities in other states. >> these are kids who have been placed out of sight. and it my intention that we are

going to ensure that they are no longer out of mind. >> it's the talking points that you hear from everyone. we don't have the services that these kids need. >> so they have to be sent out of state. >> correct. >> gelser learned oregon kids were being placed at a number of sequel facilities. one of them more than 1500 miles afwha a rural part of iowa. a small town in the middle of corn country. its campus on the same grounds as a state prison. >> and it was just a couple weeks later that you ran your first report on it. >> tonight we report on a school in iowa where most of the students are sent from other states. >> she was appalled by what she saw. nbc news spent months uncovering abuse at cla rinda academy. we spoke with former staff and residents, including mahogany chambers who said she been sexually assaulted by a

counselor. >> he started being sexually aggressive and kissing on me. >> you weren't expecting that? >> no, i was in shock. he pulled down his pants, and he penetrated and said don't tell nobody. >> did you feel like he had the power over you? >> yeah. >> sequel fired the counselor, calling his actions egregious and totally unacceptable. another allegation came from jesus lopez, a former washington state foster child placed at clarinda, who says four staff members hurt him repeatedly after he tried running away. >> they kept slamming my butt against the floor. and my head was hitting the floor. >> sequel said staff did not use proper restraint technique and that all employees involved received disciplinary action. back in oregon, senator gelser

was growing concerned. >> i came to understand that, in a desperation to find places for kids, we had put our trust in these organizations that had a business model that preyed on that type of desperation. >> because you needed it so badly. >> because beneeded it so badly. we were sending kids to places no adult from the state of oregon had been to. kids were getting on airplanes with people they didn't know. >> they paid perdiems, up to $800 per day. taxpayer money that sequel co-founder jay ripley targeted. >> we focussed on public pay, because we figure, kids are always going to have issues, and they're always going to get in trouble, and, again, you know, the government has to figure out a way to take care of them. >> a 2017 securities and exchange commission report detailing sequel's financials shows ripley, who was then the

chairman was being paid more than $100,000 a month as a founder's fee. >> this year we're going to do about 210, $220 million in revenue. we're on a fiscal year june end. our operating will be somewhere in the 30 to $32 million range. >> profit margins like those attract private equity firms looking for big returns for investors. >> they're firms that buy companies by putting them in debt, and they buy and sell them within five to seven years. any profits they make will go to their investors. and typically, because they saddle their companies with debt, often they'll lay off workers, cut on spending. >> josh costman is the author of "the buyout of america." he explains the model jay ripley pursued. >> typically, they're looking for steady eddies.

companies they feel they can tweak, make a few cuts and the revenue will keep on coming. >> in 2017, alta mont bought a stake in sequel from another p.e. firm that had made millions from the company. >> quality is intensive and expensive and constantly changing. that is not a formula for profit. if you look at your clients as a revenue stream instead of future you're investing in, you can't deliver what you're promising. >> hatcher says those physical restraints are not accidental but an intentional way to keep costs down. >> you might otherwise need a staff person with a level of care and training to care for a child with difficulties.

if you put them in physical restraint, you don't need a staff member with that level of skill, so it makes the job cheaper. >> on a whiteboard in her office, gelser kept track of these children. as the tally of incidents grew, so did her resolve. >> i started keeping a list of specific kids that i could identify with specific injuries and specific restraints, so that i could start to demonstrate that this isn't just a one-of. it's not something that happened to one kid. we now know we have specific kids of ours in danger today. >> she held hearings on out of state youth placement, visited two sequel campuses in iowa, with the company's then ceo. one of them, clarinda academy. >> the visit to clarinda was difficult. the staff was relatively defensive. there was a lot of discussion about restraint and the belief that the nbc report was unfair. >> she then went on her own, unannounced to northern illinois

academy outside chicago. >> within the first five minutes of being in there, a young woman with an intellectual disability walks through the door. there's a bowl of fruit, and show goes to reach for a piece of fruit and someone comes and just puts her in a restraint. the young person is screaming. they push her up against a wall. i had a visceral, internal reaction that i was being put back in time to a place where we dumped children with disabilities in dark, smelly institutional places. >> months later, gelser saw sequel ceo again on a campus visit in michigan. a meeting that ended with her dire warning. >> i was very afraid a kid was going to die. >> she had no way of knowing that in four months' time, 16-year-old cornelius frederick would be sitting at a cafeteria table, toss a piece of food and lose his life for it. >> emergency dispatch. >> hi, my name is heather, i'm

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april 29, 2020. cornelius frederick is eating lunch in the cafeteria in kalamazoo, michigan. surveillance video capturing the moments that would lead to the end of the 16-year-old's life. it was a life that began on the west side of detroit, a hard life. cornelius' mother died when he was 12. his father spent time in jail, and cornelius became a ward of the state. >> he was a sour patch kid, sweet on the inside but had a rough, sour exterior. >> will worked with him and brought cornelius to his church on sundays. >> he loved playing chess. >> chess? >> he tried to teach me how to play chess. and he would get so frustrated because i wanted to play chess like checkers, and he wanted me to play chess like chess. he did what he needed to

make sure all eyes were on him. >> so he acted out? >> acted out was one of his ways for attention. >> this is a kid that needed guidance. >> a lot of guidance. he wanted to be loved for the most part. that came from him not having what he feel like he needed in the home. >> cornelius bounced around the system, ultimately landing in michigan. cornelius had been restrained ten times in six months, on one occasion 35 minutes. april 2 29th would be the last time. >> if you look at the cornelius video, you clearly see he's not a threat to anyone. he's throwing a piece of bread. >> after he throws the bread, two sequel staffers approach cornelius. there's no audio.

they shove him to the ground. two men become three, and then six adults on top of him, holding cornelius down. >> that is a violent response. what the staff did. how long they held him down is shocking to people when they watch it, but it was not shocking to anyone that was in that lunch room. >> for more than ten minutes staff restrain cornelius. >> kids helped move tables out of the way. they keep eating their lunch. staff come in and use their trays. >> 12 minutes tick by before anyone calls 911. >> he was in a restraint and is now unresponsive. >> 12 minutes go by before the nurse finally calls 911. and you see people walking around his lifeless body. >> he could have been saved, you know, if someone would have had the moral compass to say that's enough. >> two days later, cornelius

died at the hospital. his death deemed a homicide. three employees fired by sequel are charged with manslaughter, each one pleading not guilty. >> is he breathing? is the child breathing? >> nbc news obtained body cam video of police interviews with those charged. nurse heather mclogan explains why they stood around cornelius as he lay on the floor. >> he just laid there, and initially, you know, it was like he, we thought he was just faking of the then we could see his chest rise and fall, so we just sat there and waited. >> he was a regular target. he had been restrained an ungodly amount of times. >> high-profile trial attorney, jeffrey fieger is suing sequel on behalf of cornelius' family. >> if you get death for throwing

a sandwich, which is what it portrays, it sounds like oliver twist. it sounds like some horror that happened in another time at another place. and yet, it happened in the state of michigan, only last year. >> do you think top officials at sequel had any idea what was really happening at lakeside acad any. >> absolutely, every testimony, every deposition, every witness say they not only knew it, but this was their mech nechl for running this business. it was heads on beds. kids as commodities. it was profit, profit, profit above all else. >> after the incident at lakeside, zachary solis told police sequel management told him he had done nothing wrong. >> they watched the video, said we were cleared. >> and he didn't understand why he'd been fired. >> what the heck, you know, they

said everything was straight. nothing was, nothing went wrong. we did a good job. we did what we were trained to do. >> sequel said in a statement the actions in the video were in clear violation of safety interventions. they were swiftly terminated for their participation in the restraint. the sequel executive i spoke with, maryann birmingham began her career at lakeside academy. i asked her about the moments that led to cornelius' death and practices on campus. >> due to the ongoing criminal and civil matters, i can't comment on lakeside, i'm sorry. >> are you able to comment as a person on seeing that video? i'm sure you've seen it, and you know people in that facility. >> i can tell you that i will not be able to discuss that incident today.

>> what makes you so emotional? >> i cannot discuss it today. sorry, kate. >> that's all right. >> these are my kids. but i can't discuss it with you today. >> do you believe that their motivation is to help kids? >> no, i believe their motivation is to make money. >> sequel isn't a publicly-traded company, so there's limited information about its finances. but a 2017 sec filing does reveal that sequel's revenue grew over three years, to more than $200 million annually. that same filing estimated the youth behavioral market to be a $11 billion industry. >> so some people probably wonder why private eck swit interested in behavioral challenges of at-risk youth. but the reality is, there is an entire ecosystem and system of payments that are tied to those young people that make it is

pretty attractive to any investor. >> venture capitalist and georgetown business school professor, melissa bradley says highly-fragmented sectors like youth services have an appeal, because investors can consolidate several small companies into a larger one, increasing value by lowering costs. >> instead of four ceos, one ceo, instead of four accounting departments you have one. instead of four marketing, one marketing. >> alta mont says we believe that behavioral health is a vital yet underserved area of the sector. it's beneficial for everyone involved. but critics like daniel hatcher worry about private equity's foegs on the bottom line. >> a private equity enters the

industry providing services to youth adds a further focus on profit and money, right, it's all about the money on a much larger scale. >> what it looks like to people on the outside is that you're a company making money. you've got private equity ownership. they're investors. they want to make a profit, and maybe you're sacrificing some of the care that you're supposed to be giving these kids. >> appreciate people's concern about that matter. i actually really do. these partners help us invest in what we're doing and continuously improve what we're doing. they invested over 30, i think it was close to $35 million in our infrastructure, our environmental infrastructure and making capital improvements to our programs. >> the greatest value of most programs is the cash they can bring. they're sitting on inordinate amounts of capital, billions of dollars, that they can deploy very quickly. if you are in a business and you don't have enough money to hire

staff, you don't have enough money for the technology systems, then private equity is a gift. >> but alta mont's investments in sequel didn't prevent the disaster at lakeside. one former employee said money was part of the problem. you see ner the surveillance video. it's a day that haunts her, and one she's never spoken about publicly until now. >> unfortunately, if you would ask the majority of our staff six months prior, we probably could have told through was going to happen probably could have told through was going to happe there's no such thing as too many adventures... or too many unforgettable moments. there will never be too many stories to write... or too many memories to make. but when it comes to a vehicle that will be there for it all. there's only one.

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so, if we can execute great programs, you're going to have more, more clients than you can possibly think of. it's like, you know, it's really like drinking from a fire hose. >> when sequel co-founder, jay ripley, presented his company at the university of baltimore in 2015, he explained that his inspiration for getting into the business of group homes came from a campus visit to the glen mills school for at-risk youth just outside philadelphia. >> we are walking on this campus, which is immaculately kept. >> he toured it with jim hindman, then, they were shown the school's financials. >> they had made so much money, they were concerned about excess retained earnings, because they are not-for-profit.

and they couldn't keep excess earnings. so they spent money on a football field. >> they would have facilities in 21 states and 4400 employees. but, with that growth came a rash of problems. >> everybody move! inside! >> in 2019, police swarmed the campus of a sequel facility in utah. >> don't move. >> following a riot by residents, many of whom alleged ongoing abuse by staff. >> the staff here punched me in the face. a grown [ bleep ] man. >> sit down. >> sequel shut down two facilities in the state. other facilities around the country have been closing, too. including two in michigan, when the state canceled contracts with sequel following the death of cornelius frederick. >> he was 15 when he came to us,

and he had no, really hope for the future. nothing was in his hands. >> when meagan fulkerson goes to the lakeside campus now she struggles with what she saw there. she worked there two years, ultimately as director of case management. cornelius frederick was one of the first male residents she was assigned to. and this interview is the first time she's spoken out publicly since his death. >> he was scared. he was this big, intimidating guy. you could tell he was hurting. >> for fulkerson, april 29, 2020, started as a typical day. >> i actually just happened to come into the cafeteria, because the student i was with was supposed to be at lunch. >> what do you see? >> i could tell that there was a student on the floor. i had no idea, you know, what had happened, when it had happened. i was like, if something was wrong, you know, those people

are in charge are right here. so i honestly walked in and didn't think anything of it for a moment. >> that says a lot right there. >> yeah. >> when she realized the seriousness of the situation, she moved to clear the room of kids and tried to help revive cornelius, but it was too late. >> how do you feel about it now? >> i'm still angry. >> were you his case manager. you knew him. >> yeah. never are going to forget. unfortunately, if you had asked the majority of our staff six months prior, we probably could have told you this was going to happen. i mean, the writing was on the wall for something, of course never expected a death. but we could definitely tell you that something was wrong. >> in 2019, fulkerson says lakeside academy started accepting more kids from california, tougher kids, and that's when everything began to change. >> why does it matter that

students are coming from california? >> california was the highest-paying counties, and so money. is what it came down to. >> sequel would make more money on kids from california. >> yes. >> those kids, she says, many from the juvenile justice system, tended to be more difficult to manage. she says the staff wasn't equipped to handle teens who in the past would never have been brought into lakeside. >> was there a point when those standards changed? >> yes, and that's what i would say around 2019, even with admissions or others had red flags, management's basically, like, no, we're taking them. >> we're taking them anyway. >> yes. >> even though they're not the kind of kid we normally would take. >> yes. >> why? >> again, it came down to money. it was anything to make california happy. >> information obtained by nbc news shows that some california counties paid lakeside about

$440 per day per child placed there. in some case more than twice as much as what michigan was play paying. >> in a statement, they called the death senseless and tragic and that the actions taken by the staff members in that video do not adhere to the leak side policies and procedures. what do you think of that? >> on paper, it doesn't. but the culture and the core of sequel would speak differently. this was not a lakeside incident or a lakeside culture or only happened at lakeside. this was normal for sequel. >> but it wasn't supposed to be. everything at sequel was supposed to be different. in part thanks to this blue pad you can see in the surveillance video, as corps feelous frederick was being pinned to the ground. feelous frederick was being pinned to the ground

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former sequel employee megan fulkerson says cornelius frederick might not have been restrained and killed if it were not for a toxic culture on campus. >> were restraints used as punishment and retribution? >> yes. it became a power struggle. you're going to respect me. you're going to comply. >> so proving that they had the power over the kid? >> exactly. >> but the use of physical restraints at lakeside was supposed to be a thing of the past. when reporting our first story about a sequel facility in march 2019, more than a year before cornelius' death, the company said we are adapting a restraint-free behavior management program called ukeru.

i went to virginia to meet ukeru president kim sanders. >> if you and where i to fight, he could use that to put between us, to separate us. >> it teaches non-physical deescalation techniques. sequel told us ukeru had been fully implemented at lakeside before cornelius was in the cafeteria, and in the video, you see someone bring over a ukeru pad and set it to the side. >> did you have all the trainer completed? >> we trained the trainers. as far as how many of their staff, those trainers were able to completely train, i'm not sure of that number. i don't know that number. >> did you get training in something called ukeru? >> yes. >> which is supposed to minimize the use of restraints? >> yes, they did start to train us in that. >> was it a whole week or days

or? >> no. it was, it was brief. we all kind of walked out like there's no way, you know. a lot of staff just felt very hesitant that hey, man, don't punch him, let me go grab this pad. >> you're saying it as punch him. >> you're saying it like it was a joke. >> a lot of staff took it that way. >> reporter: she said the company has spent almost $1 million implementing ukeru. >> every facility that's allowed by state regulators to utilize ukeru, has implemented it to some extent or another. it's a multiyear process and because it's a cultural change, it's not something you implement once and you're done with. >> reporter: over two years, nbc news has spoken to staff in several states. the same concerns come up time and time again. high turnover rates, insufficient training, low pay, and dangerously low staffing levels. >> was there more staff tired? >> the turnover was so high that

even with hiring in staff, it still didn't keep up. >> you were understaffed? >> all the time. >> what was the starting wage for an entry level job? >> i think it was $12 something an hour. it definitely was not enough. >> reporter: sequel's marianne birmingham says the company's pay is in line with industry standards and wages have gone up. >> i think in the last two fiscal years we have increased the starting pay by on average 10% and implemented programs to support staff in achieving higher education. >> sequel does not take care of its employees. the kids are commodities and the staff are commodities, as well. >> reporter: to senator sarah gelser, the company's claims are lip service. >> they train people to just

control kids and pay just over minimum wage. >> can anyone get a job at a sequel facility in >> i had one staff person say to me if you're breathing and willing, you will get hired. >> what do you think should happen to sequel? >> umm, i don't think sequel should be running any youth facilities. >> reporter: an increasing number of states appear to agree.

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♪ ♪ i would just see very frustrated and angry and need some sort of a physical release. >> reporter: as senator sarah gelser fought to protect kids at sequel facilities, she found an outlet in the corner of her backyard covered in bricks and roots she wanted to make into a flower garden. >> underneath the bricks were stumps that i had to untangle. and layers, like this deep of

more bricks and broken pots. as i was working on the sequel issues, i would be really, really angry. so i would go out and dig at roots. >> my oldest daughter surprised me -->> reporter: her family subbed it her secret rage garden. >> you have to get deep down in and figure out what the root is. >> are you talking about the garden on sequel? >> both, both. >> reporter: in part, because of her efforts, oregon removed all of its kids from sequel facilities. other states have been following suit with fewer beds filled, sequel announced the closing of several facilities, including the first and flagship operation, clarinda academy in iowa. but the company operates in 19 states around the country, including in alabama, where tristan and lori broderick are still trying to recover.

>> why are you speaking out? >> personally, umm, i went through it, i've been through it, and i don't want any other kid to have to go through that. kids that are already damaged, been through enough in their life, to go somewhere that is supposed to help them and go there and then just it destroys them. >> reporter: their focus right now is on their new baby boy. the state of alabama told us it made unannounced visits to the sites, and most, if not all deficiencies had been addressed and/or corrected at the time of these visits. johnson recently revisited sequel and noticed modest improvements to the facility, but says there's still more to do. >> we're talking about problems that run much deeper than putting a coat of paint on, you

know, sender block. we're talking about attitudes and, you know, protecting kids and making sure they're safe. holding your staff accountable. >> reporter: in michigan, the three former sequel employees charged with man slaughter in the death of cornelius frederick, await trials delayed by the covid pandemic. they've each pleaded not guilty. >> are they the people responsible for what happened to cornelius? >> no. they're the tools. they were just carrying out the practices and policies of sequel. >> reporter: the private equity firm behind sequel told us -- >> reporter: sequel executive marianne birmingham says her company gets an unfair level of criticism. >> you know, people talk about sequel, this being, this entity that exists.

i think what people miss is that sequel is an organization composed of thousands of individuals who have committed, you know, their lives to helping these kids and helping people who are some of our most vulnerable in society, and who wouldn't be able to get access to services without an organization such as ourselves. >> reporter: sequel added in a statement in part -- >> reporter: still, children's advocates say part of the solution is finding ways to keep kids out of group homes and with families in the first place. and senator gelser keeps trying to change the system. from tristan and lori, for cornelius, for jesus, and thousands like them -- >> people can say that these are troubled kids. they can say they're kids with

problems. they're children. they're kids. they should have adults that care for them, that aren't pinning them to the ground, but instead are building them up and helping themselves see what they can be in the future. they're all kids. we should listen to them. and they deserve so much better than what we're doing. tonight, on "the mehdi hasan show" -- alabama has amazon on edge over a crucial union vote. plus, infrastructure hits a gop roadblock. it's all on the table with senator bernie sanders. my conversation with him ahead. then, race in america and the trial of derek chauvin, professor, author, and activist dr. cornell west is here. when there's a complex problem, people turn to her. her