PASADENA – A man who attended Pasadena-based youth boot camps run by Kelvin “Sgt. Mac” McFarland said episodes of harsh treatment were commonplace. And the man’s adopted mother said children of immigrants and the illiterate were targeted for membership.

William Edwards, 18, of Pasadena, said in one 2010 instance instructors at the Family First Growth Camp, which was run by McFarland, targeted a young girl for discipline by handcuffing her to a fence and kicking dirt on her.

Edwards also recalled camp attendees having to drink large volumes of water that caused vomiting and nausea.

“The drill instructors would say `we will be here all day until you finish that water and if you take too long we will just make you drink more,”‘ Edwards said.

Neither McFarland nor his attorney Evan Dicker of the Los Angeles County Alternate Public Defender’s Office, returned calls seeking comment.

In recent days, questions have been raised about McFarland, his former employer Keith “Sarge” Gibbs and their respective camps after two disturbing videos were published on this newspaper’s website.

In one of the videos, children – some as young as nine years old – are seen being forced to drink water to the point of vomiting. In the other video, a pre-teen boy is seen being screamed at by drill instructors, including McFarland, while carrying a truck tire around his neck.

At the time of the taping in 2009, McFarland was employed by Gibbs.

Gibbs can be heard on speaking on one of the videos.

Both men have denied being present during the videotaping.

Police investigating

The videos prompted the Pasadena Police Department to launch an investigation and the acts have been strongly condemned by politicians from Pasadena City Hall to the nation’s Capitol.

Experts in the field of child development and child abuse laws have questioned both the efficacy and legality of the acts in the videos.

For Edwards, the images in the videos serve as a reminder of what he said he witnessed firsthand.

“(The drill instructors) would make you squat down with the tire around your neck,” Edwards said. “It makes your neck and back hurt.”

Edwards is one of four children adopted by Helen Edwards, a 74-year-old retired U.S. Postal Service employee.

Unlike many other parents who turn to boot camps, she said she didn’t enroll her children to curb bad their behavior.

“I am raising them all by myself and I wanted to give them the experience of what a man’s role in the world is,” Helen Edwards said.

`A great, smooth talker’

She said she enrolled her two sons and two daughters in Gibbs’ camp in 2008. After a dustup over training tactics and McFarland’s failure to pass a background check, Gibbs and McFarland parted ways. Wooed by McFarland’s charm, the Edwards family remained with McFarland when he branched off in 2009.

“He is a great, smooth talker,” Helen Edwards said.

She said she was so taken by McFarland that she staked the operation, writing him a check for $2,000 to help start his camp.

McFarland promised to repay, but hasn’t, the retired postal worker said. Helen Edwards said she has never filed suit to try to retrieve her money from McFarland.

For her investment, Helen Edwards served on the Family First Growth Camp’s board of directors. For nearly a year she kept McFarland’s books.

But, the relationship soured when Helen Edwards began to have doubts about McFarland’s ability to manage money.

“In November of 2009, he went up on the monthly dues from $200 to $250 a month,” Helen Edwards said. “And if you were late with the money it cost you a $25 late fee.”

Immediately, 13 families left Family First Growth Camp. In March 2010, McFarland turned to a new “recruiting tool,” Helen Edwards said.

“The third week of every month, he would come in with a child – who was skipping school – in handcuffs,” she recalled. “And he would call the parents and make them pay $100 on the spot. And then $250 at the first of the month, as part of their dues.”

`Walking-around money’

McFarland targeted some of Pasadena’s most vulnerable residents, Helen Edwards said.

“He would go after the immigrants and the illiterate,” she said.

Many of the parents who came in to pay McFarland for “finding” their children spoke little or no English and the boot camp used translators to help with the transactions, Helen Edwards said.

Helen Edwards said she would receive the $250 and deposit the money into a business account.

The $100 McFarland took from parents for capturing truant teens “was his walking-around money,” Helen Edwards said.

On May 16 Pasadena police arrested McFarland on suspicion of kidnapping, child abuse, child endangerment, extortion and unlawful use of a badge.

McFarland allegedly handcuffed a truant Pasadena Unified School District student and told her parents, who spoke limited English, to pay him $100 or he would put their daughter in a juvenile detention center.

McFarland has pleaded not guilty and is out on bail awaiting trial.

Because of her financial dealings with McFarland, Helen Edwards said previous to seeing the videos she was reluctant to come forward with any information.

She and her family left McFarland’s group after adopted son Tyrone and one of the drill instructors got into a fight, Edwards said.

A portion of McFarland’s training forced children in the camp to wrestle adult drill instructors – at least one of whom as on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, she said.

A match between Tyrone and a man identified only as “Sgt. Ronnie,” turned into a brawl, she said.

McFarland intervened and broke up the fight by reportedly using a choke hold on Tyrone, his mother said.

“Tryone, who is a big boy, almost 6-feet-tall, got free by flipping (McFarland) over his back,” Helen Edwards said. “McFarland took Tyrone for a walk and told him not to come back to the camp anymore.”

A month later Helen Edwards said she pulled all of her children from the camp.

brian.charles@sgvn.com

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