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

By Clarence Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

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."

An ambulance worker told police that Morris had a severe case of diabetes, the report says. Officers were unsure what led to his injuries. Morris was taken to George Washington University Hospital, where he was admitted in critical condition.

Four detectives were notified of the incident, the report states. The report identified the man with the head injury as Richard Morris but listed an invalid address.

Family members searched for weeks, coming up empty on phone calls to hospitals, jails and the morgue. Another daughter, Carlita Morris, said she had asked officials at George Washington University Hospital if a man named Richard Morris was there, or if a man who might have had a stroke and could not speak was a patient. She was told that no such person was admitted.

A spokeswoman for George Washington University Hospital declined to comment, citing privacy laws.

The family finally turned to Barry. On April 9, Barry's staff started an e-mail chain that ran to Lanier and Cmdr. Joel Maupin, head of the 7th Police District. Hours later, police said they had found Morris at the hospital, where he had been all along.

From the start, Morris's prognosis was poor. Chayan Chakraborti, one of Morris's hospital doctors, wrote in a report that Morris had "suffered a traumatic head injury" that left him unable to communicate, make decisions or swallow food or liquid.

In late April, the family moved him to Washington Nursing Facility in Southeast, where he continued to deteriorate and later died.

The case highlights continuing problems with procedures to notify families of dead or injured people. In April, the body of Jeremy Miller, 35, a computer technician from Spotsylvania, lay unclaimed at the medical examiner's office for two days after he suffered a fatal seizure on a Northeast street. His parents learned of his death when contacted by a Washington Post reporter.

Police also failed to inform the family of Marvin Leftwich Jr., 53, that his body was found May 27 in his Northwest home. Relatives learned of the death three days later from one of his neighbors.

Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he felt deeply about the "very regrettable grief" the Morris family must have suffered. "A citizen shouldn't have to resort to contacting council members to find out what happened," he said.

Mendelson said he expected much better, particularly since the city promised to make reforms in emergency response after the case involving journalist David Rosenbaum in 2006. Rosenbaum, 63, died of a brain injury two days after a mugging. D.C. firefighters and emergency medical workers failed to notice a severe head wound that had been inflicted with a metal pipe, and they treated him as a drunk, investigations found.

Lanier acknowledged in an interview that internal affairs investigators have launched a probe into the Morris matter but declined to comment on the facts of the case because it remains pending.

Lanier said she will not accept "sloppy police work." She said that since she became chief in 2006, her office sends quarterly memos telling officers how to handle reports of injured people taken to hospitals.

"What I tell my officers is, everybody should matter, as if it was one of their family members," Lanier said.