31 Shocks Later

Winner of a Casey Medal this year. Thanks to Alex Zayas for passing this along.

Jennifer Gonnerman: Cheryl McCollins got her first hint that something was wrong when she answered her phone on the ­evening of October 25, 2002. "Andre had a bad day." It was a case manager calling from the residential school her son ­attended in Massachusetts, roughly 215 miles away. Cheryl had received calls like this before, but the news tonight was ­nearly incomprehensible: That day, her son had received 31 electric shocks as punishment for misbehaving.

"Thirty-one?!" gasped Cheryl, standing in her kitchen in Brooklyn. "What did he do?"

Andre, 18 years old, had been diagnosed with mental retardation, and for…