Kelvin 'Sgt. Mac' McFarland: Boot Camp Video Emerges Detailing Abuse Of Teens (Warning: Graphic Video)

Two disturbing videos have emerged that show shocking and abusive treatment of kids at a Pasadena teen boot camp. The videos come courtesy of the Pasadena Star-News and further the case against Kelvin "Sgt. Mac" McFarland, who was arrested on May 27, 2011 under charges of "kidnapping, child abuse, false imprisonment, extortion and unlawful use of a badge," reports the Pasadena Star-News.

In the video above, McFarland and other instructors scream and yell at what looks like a pre-teen boy as he is forced to hold a heavy car tire. The boy is brought to his knees as he cries and is terrorized by the adults around him.

McFarland's May arrest sparked much controversy. CBS has more on what lead to the arrest:

Officials say he spotted a 14-year-old girl downtown cutting school. Pasadena police say he approached the girl, insinuated he was a police officer and handcuffed the girl. In addition, police say McFarland then demanded money from the parents to provide his boot camp/after school services.

And yet, many clients of McFarland's came to his defense. Friends and supporters rallied to his defense, reports Altadena Patch, speaking out about "how important the program was to their children."

The video below chronicles teen participants at McFarland's boot camp being forced to drink water until they vomit. McFarland has not seen the videos but admits he is aware of their existence. He tries to deflect some blame by calling out a former colleague: "If you look at that video, you will see Keith 'Sarge' Gibbs in the video," Pasadena Star-News reports.

Keith Gibbs and McFarland both served in the military and used to work together at Gibbs' boot camp. Yet in 2009, McFarland left to start a competing boot camp in Pasadena called the Family First Growth Camp. Gibbs tells the Pasadena Star-News that the split occurred when McFarland "failed to pass a background check and allegations emerged of inappropriate training methods."

As for why the boot camp activities were filmed, investigators have yet to find out.

Comments

[Knmt Ka Raet]

09:50 PM on 12/18/2011

If that is the same Sgt. Keith Gibbs, USMC who used to be a recruiter here in Los Angeles back in the 80's when I was about to join, he needs to be locked up! That guy choked me one day while out and about with him handling military recruitment business. He also made sexual advances towards me at the recruitment office and threatened me.

[johnny altamirano]

10:09 PM on 11/11/2011

I have been a US Marine for 13 years now and as a former Drill Instructor, I can tell you these "Fake Drill Instructors", do not know what they are doing. There are certain things we can and can't do. By taking a close look at the videos, those are all illegal acts. I hope they all get formally charged and disciplined. Further, it against the Marine Corps Order to wear the utilities uniform, outside a Marine Corps base. Also, those fake Drill Instructors, are not authorised to wear the Campaign Cover.

GySgt Altamirano

[PatrioticPirate]

09:47 AM on 11/07/2011

FYI: what these children are going through in this video is absolutely NOTHING compared to what will happen to them in the real world. If most children today were to figure out that parents are telling them to not be with the gangs, the drinking, the drugs, etc. so that they wouldn't become the same garbage that they are, then these kinds of things wouldn't have to exist.

Let these children go hang out with the 'boys in the hood.' The results will be addiction, rape, foul ways of thinking, ignorance, and more. These same results, in short, are that these children will become the same lowlife trash that their parents tried to make them to be better than.

The best parenting in the world means NOTHING if the children don't or won't listen.

[jst4horses]

01:40 PM on 11/01/2011

The water I was told in another boot camp, is to let the youths see how it is to allow others to bully one into drinking enough to DIE let alone vomit. The use of water allows the teen to see the reactions of the body, using alcohol would be illegal and numbing.

I would think that video tape is to protect the boot camp and the kids. It allows parents to see what has occurred.

I work with Parent Project, and do not use these methods, but compared to the reality of what the mean streets will do to a young person who does not smart up, it is mild. I think that the process might need review and oversight, but also know that many of the students and parents say it saved the lives of the teens and children involved. Many of the students had been a menace to younger siblings, and even parents, and bullied others at school with no help in sight.

The kids admit that themselves..

I feel that compared to the thousands of young girls who get caught up with pimps and pushed into street sex prostitution each day, that this is mild for a little girl who thinks she is a lot smarter than she is.

[JEFF N]

11:04 AM on 10/30/2011

This is the result of inadequate people not knowing what to do with kids. This kind of "treatment" has to stop!

[chavezcoach]

07:51 AM on 10/30/2011

Can't be critical of this because I don't know the children. As a teacher I can recommend that this would be beneficial for some of my hard core students though. Their parents just let them do whatever they want. It isn't any wonder that they behave as they do.

[JEFF N]

11:08 AM on 10/30/2011

This is the result of inadequate people not knowing what to do with difficult kids. This kind of "treatment­" has to stop! I don't care if you "don't know the children", "coach". I'm a child and adolescent psychologist, and I know the difference between treatment interventions and abuse and trauma.

[mamasilverhair]

07:05 PM on 10/30/2011

Actually this instance...is a man who thought one day how to make money and have a good time at the same time... He made up a boot camp ( not approved of by the state)...hired people ( not trained)....and started picking up his "kids" off the side of the street. Posing as a police officer. He would take the children out to his "boot camp" where he would "train????" them and then charge thier parents after ward... Thank God this "nut" is in jail right now... charges of extortion, kidnapping, and pretending to be a police officer.... Please do not confuse this case with real live boot camps...For this was NOT one...

[juicyazzmarie]

12:55 AM on 10/30/2011

Water torture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Water torture encompasses a variety of techniques of torture using water.
In this form of water torture, water is forced down the throat and into the stomach. This happens repeatedly until osmosis causes the cells to explode[citation needed]. It was used as a legal torture and execution method by the courts in France in the 17th and 18th century, was employed against Americans and Chinese during World War II by the Japanese, and was also used against Filipinos by American Forces during the Philippine-American War. The Human Rights Watch organization reports that in the 2000s, security forces in Uganda sometimes forced a detainee to lie face up under an open water spigot.[1]
Water intoxication can result from drinking too much water, and this has caused some fatalities over the years in fraternities during initiation week. For example, a person was hazed to death by Chi Tau of Chico State (California) in 2005 via the forcing of pushups and the drinking of water from a bottle

[Jay Be]

06:01 PM on 11/02/2011

Seriously you do not know what your talking about.. those kids are not being abused.. look at their clothes.. they are dirty they are sweaty.. those kids have been working their asses off.. and this is what we call Hydration period.. you dont chug but you sip water.. you just worked the hell out of your body.. so now its time to rehydrate. they are surrounded by instructors and i am will be you anything that a corpsman where on the scene.. these videos are from the Devil pups program at Camp Pendleton.. not a detention center or a boot camp.

[Praline]

12:09 AM on 10/30/2011

So let me get this straight. There are people on this site that actually think sadomasochism is going to teach their kids a lesson? Instead of actually talking to your children and understanding you take the most laziest route and send your children to these pathetic brutes? Their acting like animals. If anyone deserves to be yelled at its these scum people allow to be around children.

[jst4horses]

01:46 PM on 11/01/2011

I did a four year research project for my Masters on schools, and it is well documented since my initial report, that there are kids who are so out of control they need something way beyond. If you disagree, I am sure any public school teacher will welcome you into class to try your methods on stopping what another student described to me as "the bad kids". He said, all the teachers do is yell at the bad kids, we don't learn anything, and no one cares. THAT is sad.

[Terence Duke]

11:41 PM on 10/29/2011

There are many people who should be going to jail for this. starting with the parents. I have 3 sons. Kind loving never have i spoken to them or treated them anywhere close to this. consistent calm discipline. some people need to watch the nanny more

[seanny53]

12:03 PM on 10/30/2011

Fanned for your micro-bio.

[Jay Be]

02:38 AM on 11/11/2011

I bet none of your Sons are US Marines

[CrestedSparrow]

08:31 PM on 10/29/2011

10 seconds into the video I had to stop. The kid is being traumatized by incessant screaming-in-your-face adult bullies. So much for healing the emotional problems or scars in these children.

[jst4horses]

01:47 PM on 11/01/2011

You are another one who is welcome to go see if you can calm down a "bad kid". Many a teacher and many more students and siblings are harmed by these kids because these are not kids who fail to fold their napkin after a meal.

[CrestedSparrow]

10:52 PM on 11/02/2011

Well, Dr. Phil seems to have a good plan. Take away their privileges and luxuries down to the bed they sleep in and the parents stand as a united front in their discipline. I don't think MORE abuse is the answer to anything. If the child is incorigible then maybe its time for a child psychologist or someone who is able to get through to the child. Bad behavior stems from some place; finding its source is the challenge.

[Andrea Doria]

08:03 PM on 10/29/2011

If anyone out there thinks that this kind of treatment brings the best out of troubled kids you have some serious issues that generate such troubled kids.

[Carlton Jordan]

10:08 PM on 10/29/2011

bish please.

[Andrea Doria]

11:20 PM on 10/29/2011

F off clown.

[juicyazzmarie]

12:06 AM on 10/30/2011

Andrea thats right this is horrible treatment thats not even allowed in prisons to adult criminal men and women why on earth would someone think abuse like this is gonna help a kid! Plain Ignorance and no clue on how to discipline kids in a right way!

[LiberalGod]

06:29 PM on 10/29/2011

Modern society has a problem with adolescents beacuse we still treat then and call them "minors". biologically they are adults past the age of 14. Mandatory education is part of the problem. Strong willed kids cannot be controlled by the system and the system has a huge problem with it.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

05:05 PM on 10/29/2011

Only in this country we send teenagers to bootcamps against their will. Sheer madness. I would have never gone into NROTC if bootcamp was a requirement (though the "summer cruises" were no picnic indeed. Still way better than bootcamp.) And yet I made a fine naval officer for the time I served (in a WAR, incidentally...) I'm really not sure abuse is the best way to train our military personnel. Certainly it's totally gratuitous when it comes to "train" problem kids, just because their parents don't know how to be parents and they have no intention to learn.

[BOBinPS]

08:49 PM on 10/29/2011

OK, I agree with you. But what do you do with problem kids? Should schools take the responsibility for them if their parents will not?

I don't pretend to have the solution. But is seems that enlisting them into the military is a partial solution. Some learn skills and the discipline to survive in society. Some are just cannon fodder.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

09:51 PM on 10/29/2011

Most will be traumatized for life.

[GetSome]

04:48 PM on 10/29/2011

Hey whimpos,

Fact, kids that go to bootcamps need attitude adjustments. They don't need OSHA or CPS.

My 14 daughter has been sneaking out of Mom's house, getting rides from 18-19 old guys to a friends house to drink and then get a ride home with these same guys after drinking!!!

Dangers my child faced:

Rape
Being Killed
Abducted (Sexual Slavery, etc)
Car accident (death, injury, disfigurement, etc)
Arrested, etc

So, if I can't get a hold of baby, you better believe that a Bootcamp is next.

And, you better know that drinking water until she throws up is on a list of acceptable things to be put through compared to the list above.

I assure you 100% that any parent who has lost a child, has a physically or emotionally scared child because would welcome, with open arms, some water induced vomiting!!!

Kids that go to boot camps have issues - deep issues - most brought on by parents or a system that has empowered them to the point that they have no common sense much less any sense of consequences.

Kids need to know there are consequences, and water, that's an easy one in the grand scheme of life.

I just let my daughter watch this, and I let her know Daddy loves you so much that I'd rather what was on this video than the reality of dangers on the list above.

All of you who disagree - Drink That!!!!!!

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

05:19 PM on 10/29/2011

"Kids that go to boot camps have issues - deep issues - most brought on by parents"

Yes, by parents who don't know how to be parents and who don't want to learn. They somehow believe that bootcamp is a way to outsource parenting.

[GetSome]

08:00 PM on 10/29/2011

Hey Very Liberal,

1st, do you have kids?

2nd what age if you do?

As for your comments, you're right, very right sadly. In my case I have a baby's mommma who gives far too many freedoms and tried being too much friend and not a parent. Our situation is what's called a Loyalty Conflict. Look it up.

I'd love to hear the answers to my questions.

[AudreyLee]

05:46 PM on 10/29/2011

Thank God you're not my dad..

[GetSome]

08:06 PM on 10/29/2011

Thank god you learned to make better decisions than these kids learned.

This reply is the best response to illustrate where we go wrong as a society.

It isn't about you!!!!!!

It isn't about me (although I can identify because of my close proximity). This article condemns the acts of the trainers. Does anyone realize that unless these kids are taught that there are horrible consequences (I mean horrible not water) to their actions that they will ruin their lives and maybe, just maybe the lives of your children or someone close to you.

My daughter's choices and decision have ramifications. I am selfish and want whats best for me and her, but I certainly don't want to hear that she was out doing stupid things and caused anyone else's child to be hurt, etc.

I would hate that to happen in my life to my family.

So yes, thank god I'm not your father because you made better decisions, but if you're my daughter and I send you to boot camp to get right - thank god then too!!!

[blizzard man robot voice]

03:47 PM on 10/29/2011

Boot camp techniques on junior high school children? Absolutely insane. When I was in boot camp, the drill instructors would do something called water IT. This technique consisted of drinking two canteens of water in a few minutes, which made most of the shorter guys throw up. It's a practice that can get drill instructors in serious trouble because you can overhydrate the person and commanding officers don't allow it.

This is what they are doing in the video. It's a terrible thing to do to recruits and it's a horrible thing to do to children. Why do parents send their children to these bootcamps? Is it their poor parenting skills that make them think it's okay to have former drill instructors put the fear of God into them?

The military uses drill instructors for a practical reason. Using drill instructors on boys and girls leads to I don't know... there's no defined purpose.

Parents, raise your children. Don't send them to camps where men are paid to scream and belittle children just because they never learned to take off their Smokey The Bear campaign cover long ago.

[NoMaam]

04:28 PM on 10/29/2011

While I don't mind at all what I saw in the video, some kids need this, whether it's water IT or being screamed at. I do agree that it is the parents fault. To many adults now want to be their kids friend instead of a parent. Or some just do not care what their kids do.