A former youth detention center resident testifies about 'hit squad' attack

BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) — A former resident of New Hampshire’s youth detention center testified Thursday that his house leader and another staffer restrained him in a stairwell while two other workers sexually assaulted him.

The four members of what he and other teens called “the hit squad” then carried him back to his room and tossed him in, he said.

“It felt like I hovered over and watched it,” Michael Gilpatrick said, wiping away tears in Rockingham Superior Court. “My body just went blank.”

Gilpatrick, 40, was the first former resident to testify at the first civil trial seeking to hold the state accountable for alleged abuse at the Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly called the Youth Development Center. The three years he spent at the Manchester facility in the late 1990s overlapped with the plaintiff, David Meehan, who alleges the state’s negligence in hiring, staffing and training led to the near-daily rapes, beatings and long stints in solitary confinement he endured. The state, however, argues it was not responsible for the actions of what it calls “rogue” employees.