City Council revokes Sequel’s business license after three teens escape
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MADISON – A steady stream of concerned citizens expressed their desire Wednesday evening for Sequel TSI in Madison to close. They spoke out at a special called public hearing by the Madison City Council to consider revoking the business licensee of the youth detention center.
Sequel TSI Madison, which has also been known as Three Springs, is a medium risk secure youth detention facility licensed by the Alabama Department of Youth Services and the Alabama Department of Human Resources for at-risk youth.
The hearing came after three male juveniles escaped from Sequel’s facility on Brownsferry Road on July 25. It was the latest in a string of escapes to plague Three Springs over the years. The worst incident resulted in the beating death exactly two years ago of a construction worker in Madison.
Stewart Sanderson, who said he lives directly behind Sequel’s facility, told the council he and his family are tired of living in fear of another escape. “Too many times we have had to sit at our houses and watch the fine men and women of the police department have to come through our subdivision with dogs, drones, SWAT team with full tactical gear,” he said. “I was out of town and my phone was ringing off the hook (when the latest escape occurred). Finally someone gets me and asks, ‘where are you at? I can’t get your wife. I can’t get your son. Three people have escaped.’ It’s too much. It’s just too much!”
The seven-member city council didn’t need convincing though. Their minds were made up and it was very evident they had enough. In a unanimous vote, the council decided to revoke Sequel’s business license and gave the company seven days to shut down their Madison facility.
“You failed your residents,” District 7 councilman John Seifert told Sequel senior vice president Kenny Roberts during the hearing. “It’s your responsibility to protect your kids that the state has entrusted to you. You failed. It’s our responsibility to protect our citizens. We are going to do that.”
A similar public hearing was held over a year ago, in April 2018, after two teens who were staying at the facility escaped two years ago and are accused of murdering Van Johnson, a construction worker from Georgia behind the Publix grocery store on County Line Road in Madison.
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.
Madison city attorney Megan Zingarelli presented a resolution to the council which called for revoking Sequel’s business license with a 30-day grace period. The council voted to amend it to shorten the period to only seven days. It passed with a unanimous vote.
