D.C. Police Failed To Notify Family of Relative in Hospital

D.C. police failed to alert a Southeast Washington family that a man whom relatives had reported missing was in a hospital, taken there after officers found him in an alley suffering from a severe head injury.

A team of detectives was assigned to investigate how Richard Morris, 61, was injured, police records show. They never made the connection to the missing person's report, and they did not notify his family.

For more than a month, relatives had no idea that Morris was in a hospital. Only after the family turned to the office of D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) did police act.

The department has launched an internal investigation to determine what went wrong. Morris died July 22, more than four months after he was hospitalized.

"We are very angry. We are all upset," said Bernadette Morris, one of Morris's daughters. "This should have never taken place."

The case is the third to come to light this year involving failures by the city to promptly inform families of deaths or accidents. Chief Cathy L. Lanier ordered the probe after she learned of the lapses.

Morris was injured March 1, and his family did not see him until April 9. They found the once playful, music-loving man, a former federal government employee, helplessly bedridden at George Washington University Hospital. He had a bruise and knot on his left eyebrow. For weeks, he was awake enough to see them enter his room but was unable to communicate in words. At the sound of their voices, tears fell from his eyes.

Police are awaiting a ruling from the medical examiner to determine whether Morris was the victim of a homicide or an accident.

Family members said they have been frustrated since March 3, when they called 911 and reported Morris missing. At that time, they told police that Morris had last been seen March 1 when he left his home on First Street SE to pick up a prescription at the Eastover shopping center in Maryland. The family noted that Morris was diabetic, a police report shows.

According to the report, investigators confirmed that Morris had picked up the prescription. Police alerted Greater Southeast Community Hospital and Howard University Hospital as well as the medical examiner's office and other law enforcement agencies to the disappearance.

Police apparently did not look far enough. Officers had found Morris, unconscious, on March 1 in an alley off Barnaby Street SE, less than a mile from his home.

A police report states that Morris "could not talk and he had a large lump on his head with an open wound" as well as "some blood in his mouth."