petergriffon
Junior Member
My brother (26 yrs old) has down syndrome and was getting ready to go and live in a group home. My mother took him there for dinners several nights a week for several weeks, and 5 overnight visits. He was at the point where he was 1 week away from moving in permanently. My mother got a call one Saturday morning and was told there was an incident overnight with my brother. Apparently the doorknob to his room was removed, his window was broken, and he was sitting in broken glass. He was not injured, only a few scrapes from the glass. There were 2 workers working that night and the house manager came in at 11PM. They all have different stories, which tells me that some one, or all of them are lying.
I convinced my mother to call the police, who came right way and spent several hours at the house interviewing people. The story from one of the workers is....he went into my brothers room to tend to him and had the keys to the doors with him. He put the keys down while he was tending to my brother, then left the room because another resident was causing a commotion and needed assistance. Once he left my brother shut and locked the door with the keys in the room. He then got help from the other worker; one tried to get into the door by removing the doorknob, and he went outside and tried to get into the window and wound up breaking it.
There are several things wrong with this story. 1 - there is no reason he would have the keys on him if the door wasn't already locked, all of the doors are unlocked. 2 - the other resident that was causing a commotion was in the room next to their office, which is where the other worker was, so why didn't he hear it and go help. 3 - my brother is on the extreme low end of the spectrum, he does not speak and needs constant care. There is no way he would have shut the door on his own and even if he did, there is no way he could have locked it. 4 - he didn't tell anyone about the broken window and it was not discovered until the morning when the morning shift workers came in.
The police are still looking into it, but being there is no proof of what happened, they don't think they can prove anything criminal was done. There is nothing stopping the workers from lying; my brother cannot tell us what happened and there are no cameras in the house for evidence. This is also being investigated by a justice department run by new york state, but they are not telling us anything and we don't expect to ever hear the truth from anyone associated with their organization.
My question is, is there anything legally my mother can do being there is no proof of what exactly happened. From what the police officer told us, it is illegal to lock someone, especially someone like my brother, in their room against their will; but again, there is no proof that that happened.
I convinced my mother to call the police, who came right way and spent several hours at the house interviewing people. The story from one of the workers is....he went into my brothers room to tend to him and had the keys to the doors with him. He put the keys down while he was tending to my brother, then left the room because another resident was causing a commotion and needed assistance. Once he left my brother shut and locked the door with the keys in the room. He then got help from the other worker; one tried to get into the door by removing the doorknob, and he went outside and tried to get into the window and wound up breaking it.
There are several things wrong with this story. 1 - there is no reason he would have the keys on him if the door wasn't already locked, all of the doors are unlocked. 2 - the other resident that was causing a commotion was in the room next to their office, which is where the other worker was, so why didn't he hear it and go help. 3 - my brother is on the extreme low end of the spectrum, he does not speak and needs constant care. There is no way he would have shut the door on his own and even if he did, there is no way he could have locked it. 4 - he didn't tell anyone about the broken window and it was not discovered until the morning when the morning shift workers came in.
The police are still looking into it, but being there is no proof of what happened, they don't think they can prove anything criminal was done. There is nothing stopping the workers from lying; my brother cannot tell us what happened and there are no cameras in the house for evidence. This is also being investigated by a justice department run by new york state, but they are not telling us anything and we don't expect to ever hear the truth from anyone associated with their organization.
My question is, is there anything legally my mother can do being there is no proof of what exactly happened. From what the police officer told us, it is illegal to lock someone, especially someone like my brother, in their room against their will; but again, there is no proof that that happened.