City council to vote on public hearing concerning Sequel TSI after three escape youth treatment facility

UPDATE: The city council on Monday night approved setting the public hearing for Aug. 14 at 6 p.m. The hearing will be held at the Madison City Hall.

MADISON – The City of Madison has called a special city council meeting for Monday to set a public hearing regarding the business license of Sequel TSI Holdings, LLC. The meeting will be held at city hall at 5:30 p.m.

If approved by the city council, a hearing will likely be set for Wednesday, Aug. 14.

The move comes after three male juveniles escaped from Sequel’s youth treatment facility on Brownsferry Road last night.

Madison Police said the three teens were detained around 9 p.m. Thursday at Segers and Schrimsher Road after they escaped around 8 p.m. Police issued a public notification for residents to be on the lookout for the three escapees, they called in the SWAT team and K9 unit to search for them, and alerted nearby law enforcement agencies.

Sequel TSI Madison, which has also been known as Three Springs, is a a medium risk secure treatment facility licensed by the Alabama Department of Youth Services and the Alabama Department of Human Resources for at-risk youth.

A similar public hearing was held over a year ago, in April 2018, after two teens who were staying at the facility escaped nearly two years ago and are accused of murdering a construction worker from Georgia behind the Publix grocery store on County Line Road in Madison.

The city council narrowly approved renewing Sequel’s business license to operate the facility after improvements to the fencing and addition of more cameras and door locks.

The council vote was 4-3, with Maura Wroblewski, Greg Shaw, and John Seifert voting against it.

“We understand the big picture, service, of what they do at Sequel for troubled youth. If we don’t take care of them now, they will be back in our community in a different way. But in the same sense, a serious incident happened where someone lost their life, and we take that seriously as well,” Mayor Paul Finley said at the April 2018 hearing.

Representatives of Sequel argued in 2018 that the facility is already heavily regulated by the state, both the Department of Youth Services and the Department of Human Resources. They said alarms to doors were added, student to staff ratio was increased, and they were evaluating safety and policy changes.

With the latest escape, many residents took to social media to say it is time for Sequel to relocate their facility, despite the overall good they do for troubled youth. They say because of increased development in Madison over the years, a facility like Sequel no longer fits at that location.

“I am concerned about the security in this juvenile detention facility,” said one concerned resident. “This place needs to be relocated. It is too close to neighborhoods.”

“I think the facility itself should be relocated somewhere else, away from people, away from neighborhoods,” another resident said. “I don’t fear the facility as much as we fear what those escapees are capable of doing to innocent citizens of Madison.”

When the facility first opened in 1996, the area around Three Springs was not heavily populated. Over the years as the city grew, more subdivisions sprang up.

After the escape and murder in 2017, residents living around the facility are naturally on edge anytime a resident from the facility escapes. Several citizens spoke out at last year’s hearing to express their lack of trust in Sequel, and the facility’s ability to prevent escapes. Many more residents are expected to further express their concerns if a public hearing is set for Aug. 14.

One bright spot in the escape was the response from the Madison Police.

After the incident in 2017, Madison Police Chief David Jernigan said the department changed its policy on Sequel TSI runaways. They are now classified in the city’s eyes as escapes, and requires an immediate response from the police department. The response by the police was heavy Thursday, which resulted in the quick capture of the three escapees.

“Excellent job by Madison Police and some very alert citizens in the capture of three escapees from Sequel,” the MPD posted on Facebook Friday.

According to Sequel, their facility in Madison includes 58 beds with 48 licensed by the Alabama Department of Youth Services and 10 beds licensed by the Alabama Department of Human Resources. The treatment staff provides comprehensive, challenging, and therapeutic services for adolescent males.

The profile for the average resident at the facility is males, age 12 to 18 years old who have impulsive/irresponsible behavioral tendencies, denies and/or justifies negative behavior, has problems with anger and aggression, demonstrates a low degree of empathy, lacks self-discipline, exhibits poor coping skills, is non-compliant with authority, and may have been adjudicated by the Juvenile Justice system.