A Provo Canyon School nurse called 911 one April night to report a riot. It was the second time Springville police had been contacted about the campus that day.
“It’s really bad,” the caller told the dispatcher, according to a nearly three-minute phone call The Salt Lake Tribune obtained through an open records request. She noted that she was at the residential treatment center’s Springville campus, not the namesake campus about 9 miles away in Provo. “I need help. Like this is out of control. Girls are trying to bust out.”
She said eight girls were already in restraints — “and there’s going to be more. I just looked through the window and there’s girls trying to break through the window with chairs,” according to the call audio. One staffer was hurt, and the caller was the only nurse not actively dealing with the uproar, she said.
Once police arrived, eight girls were taken into custody, Lt. Warren Foster with the Springville Police Department said. A police report indicates the girls were fighting with staff and each other. They were later booked into a juvenile detention center on suspicion of felony charges. The report shows more than a dozen emergency response units were sent to the scene.
When The Tribune asked Provo Canyon School officials for comment about that night, the residential treatment center’s CEO called the the episode a “disturbance” for which police were called as “a precaution.”
“We were able to settle the disturbance quickly and safely. No patients or staff were injured. The facility is fully operational at this time,” Tim Marshall said in an April 21 email, adding that the residents taken into police custody returned to the center the next day.
He did not respond to additional questions about what happened, including discrepancies between his statement and the 911 call, nor did he respond to The Tribune’s questions about other police responses to the school between February and April — including a reported March 27 assault on a staffer that preceded the man’s death.
When The Tribune asked Provo Canyon School for additional details about the reported assault — providing 58-year-old Dennis Torrens’ obituary — Marshall said in an April 26 email, “Hereby reaffirming that there were no patients or staff injured as a result of the disturbance on April 12th. Unrelated to this incident, the Provo Canyon School family extends our condolences to Mr. Torrens’ family. He was loved and will be missed.”
Utah’s teen treatment industry has faced increased scrutiny in recent years, with former residents including celebrity Paris Hilton coming forward with allegations of mistreatment and abuse they say they faced at these centers, and highlighting lax government oversight to prevent such cases.
[Read more: Provo Canyon School’s history of abuse accusations spans decades, far beyond Paris Hilton]
A 2021 law change increased the required number of annual inspections at residential treatment facilities; provided more money to pay inspectors; and restricted the use of restraints, drugs and isolation rooms on residents. But some advocates have said those changes didn’t go far enough.
In December, a 17-year-old girl died at Diamond Ranch Academy, a residential treatment facility in Hurricane, after managers at the facility refused her medical attention, her family’s attorney said in an April statement. Medical examiners concluded that Taylor Goodridge died from peritonitis, an abdominal tissue infection that the attorney argued is typically “easily treated with antibiotics.”
Allegations and few answers
Foster, with Springville police, told The Tribune that a male resident “basically sucker punched” Torrens on March 27. Torrens underwent surgery to address his injuries and died afterward in Orem.
Foster said Springville and Orem police are investigating the assault and whether or not it contributed to the staffer’s death. Orem police spokesperson Nicholas Thomas declined on May 9 to answer questions about the case.
Police records show that officers were contacted about the school eight times between February and April:
Feb. 19: Someone called police to report that they had found more than 6 grams of methamphetamine and paraphernalia at the school. Officers closed the case Feb. 27 “due to lack of suspect evidence,” records state.
Feb. 27: Officers learned of a juvenile resident who ran away. Officers found the child and brought them back “without incident,” records state.
March 27: Officers were dispatched to the school for a reported assault. Three people were injured — including Torrens — and the suspected assailant, a boy, was booked into a juvenile detention facility. Records state the boy’s father was notified.
April 4: The Division of Child and Family Services referred a sexual assault case reported at the school to Springville police, according to a heavily redacted report.
April 11, 9:16 a.m.: Police received a report of a 16-year-old boy who had run from a lockdown facility. Officers detained him after a “short foot pursuit” and brought him back to Provo Canyon School, records state.
April 11, 5:46 p.m.: An employee at the school reported that someone was impersonating her and had messaged another employee telling them they were suspended, records state.
April 12, 1:25 p.m.: Springville police responded to the school to assist another agency, records state.
April 12, 10:16 p.m.: Officers responded to a call that girls were “rioting in their living quarters” and that the girls were “actively fighting staff and each other,” records state.
State regulators received complaints about each of those potentially criminal events, according to Charla Haley, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Licensing, which oversees teen treatment programs, is housed within DHHS.
Haley said officials investigate licensed facilities after they receive such complaints, “but can’t release any specific details” until investigators finish their review.
Officials last assessed Provo Canyon School in Springville on Jan. 17 for a routine, announced inspection, according to DHHS. An inspector ran through a checklist of applicable state laws and found that the school was in compliance with all guidelines. Regulators who inspected the school during an unannounced visit on Dec. 12 similarly found no issues.
Haley said Monday that regulators will likely finish investigating these more recent cases “in the next couple of weeks” and will release the findings in cases where inspectors found “noncompliance with licensing rules.”
‘A father figure’
According to a personal obituary, Torrens died on April 20. His family remembered him as a “cowboy at heart,” “happiest in a freshly pressed and creased pair of ... jeans, a long-sleeved Ariat shirt, belt with a fancy buckle and a comfortable pair of cowboy boots.”
The obituary adds that Torrens liked working with his hands and had recently bought woodworking equipment to make furniture. It does not mention the reported March 27 assault.
“He loved his family, his Irish heritage, going to rodeos, fishing, the Kansas City Chiefs, BYU football and history,” the obituary reads, noting that Torrens had considered going back to school so he could teach history.
The Tribune was unable to reach Torrens’ family members regarding his death.
Torrens had previously served 10 years in the Army, where he worked as a mechanic, his obituary states. He continued that career once he left the military, but eventually “got tired of smelling like grease and having grease under his fingernails,” his obituary notes.
He used GI Bill benefits to attend the culinary arts program at Utah Valley University to become a chef. He opened a restaurant, The Arbor in Orem, and went on to work at Brigham Young University’s Skyroom restaurant and in food production, the obituary states.
Torrens eventually got a job as kitchen manager at Provo Canyon School, according to his obituary. He later became a student life mentor, working with boys at the residential treatment center.
“The boys loved and respected Dennis,” the obituary states, “and looked to him as a father figure, which many had not experienced before.”
Torrens is survived by his mother, his wife, four children, two grandchildren, three sisters and his “beloved [Plott] hound, Boone,” the obituary states.
