A Suffolk judge on Friday ordered the re-evaluation of a man’s
mental competency to stand trial over the alleged assault of a
92-year-old woman inside now-closed Oakwood Assisted Living.
According to Circuit Court filings, William Keith Ruffin,
exactly two years ago Saturday and then 42 years old, responded to
internal voices when he allegedly beat Violet Compton nearly to death.
Ruffin had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and
schizoaffective disorder and has abused crack cocaine, alcohol and
marijuana, according to the court documents, which stated he had told
investigators he had been napping in his room at the East Washington
Street facility, when “he began to hear voices in his head.”
The voices told him, “Get up N—!” “The people” were “trying to take his face,” the voices said.
Ruffin told investigators that he thought Compton was one of the main people “trying to take his face off.”
Arriving at the facility about 6:12 p.m., first-responders
found Compton “severely beaten and injured” after Ruffin “(beat) her
about her face and head with (his) fists.” She was airlifted to Sentara
Norfolk General Hospital.
Charged with aggravated malicious wounding, Ruffin has since
been remanded to Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk and Central
State Hospital in Petersburg, where staff have been working on his
psychological rehabilitation.
His first hospitalization, according to court filings, was
in 1999, and the pattern has been “involuntary psychiatric admission,”
court-ordered medical treatment, improvement, but then relapse into
substance abuse upon discharge.
Court filings describe two contacts with Western Tidewater
Community Services Board. On March 26, 2012, he presented with “somatic
delusions,” but improved “with support and being able to share his
feelings;” he received an injection of Invega Sustenna, used in the
treatment of schizophrenia, but resisted taking his anti-depressant
Zoloft.
Ruffin’s second contact with board staff was on April 2,
2012 — three days before Compton was beaten at Oakwood — when “there was
no indication given that he was suicidal or homicidal.”
At the beginning of February, concerned that his responses
to questions indicated poor mental health, Judge Carl E. Eason Jr.
declined to accept Ruffin’s not-guilty plea, and ordered the first
evaluation of his competency to stand trial.
When Ruffin was later back before the court with his
“competency restored,” doubts arose over whether he was still receiving,
inside the jail, the same medications the state hospital had
prescribed, Eason said in court Friday.
As a sheriff’s deputy escorted him into the courtroom, Ruffin gazed into the public gallery with an unfocused stare.
Full Article & Source:
Man faces charges in beating at Oakwood
Based on his age, he appears to be a worker. So how do these things continue to happen?
ReplyDeleteThese things continue to happen, Thelma, because Virginia's public agencies, the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, the local Community Services Boards, and the Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services, which runs Virginia's out of control public guardianship programs, continue to dump unstable, dangerous, seriously mentally ill people in assisted living facilities alongside frail elderly people.
ReplyDeleteRead a little further in the source article, and you will see that Oakwood is one of the six facilities with 400 residents operated by the notorious Scott Schuett in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.
How could we have avoided this?
The public guardianship programs could stop mixing frail elderly citizens with unstable, violent seriously mentally ill people in filthy, dangerous unlicensed or semi-licensed residential facilities.
The Virginia Public Guardian and Conservator Advisory Board could do its JOB and provide oversight and supervision of these out of control programs, or simply de-fund the two programs, Jewish Family Service of Tidewater and Catholic Charities of Eastern Virginia, that violate the law and endanger their clients.
The Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services staff including Janet James, Esquire and Amy Marschean, Esquire could stick up for the VICTIMS and refrain from acting as cheerleaders for the public guardianship programs, no matter how outrageous, illegal and dangerous their behavior.
The courts could ensure that the same guardian ad litem, Colleen T. Dickerson, Esquire, is not hand-picked in literally hundreds of cases involving the public guardianship programs, and that she is not permitted to mislead the court as to the actual squalor and danger in which her so-called "clients" live day after day.
The Licensing Division of the Virginia Department of Social Services could exercise its clear statutory authority to shut these places down in fifteen days because they constitute a substantial danger to the public health and safety. Instead, VDSS allowed shutdown proceedings to drag on for seventeen agonizing months, during which 379 innocent disabled and elderly citizens remained in constant peril, and more injuries and deaths occurred. (The Violet Compton attack occurred on April 5, 2012. VDSS did not shut down Oakwood until fourteen months later, on June 7, 2013, a few days after yet another resident was hit by a car. VDSS did not shut down Ashwood in Hampton until October 1, 2013.)
The Virginia Attorney General's Office could fulfill its mandatory duty to REPORT SCOTT SCHUETT TO THE BAR so that he does not move back to Michigan and hang out a shingle as an elder law attorney.
Each and every one of these public officials and public agencies could unite as one voice to contact law enforcement at the state and local levels to ensure that Scott Schuett is ARRESTED for the systematic abuse and neglect of numerous residents at Oakwood, Ashwood, Colonial Home, Governor's Inn, and Madison.
Or, in the alternative, they could continue to spread malicious falsehoods about anyone who tries to shed light on these conditions and protect these victims, and wait for the inevitable lawsuits. (The plaintiff's attorney in the Violet Compton case described this lawsuit as "just the tip of the iceberg." There are FIVE wrongful death/personal injury cases against Scott Schuett, and more sure to follow.)
It is a crime and a shame that the only solution to these horrible problems are criminal charges against a mentally ill man who is clearly incompetent to stand trial and not guilty by reason of insanity, and a lawsuit against the bankrupt Scott Schuett after the fact.
ReplyDeleteThe Commonwealth of Virginia spends big bucks on a variety of "human rights" and "protective services" and "oversight" agencies that are supposed to prevent these problems in advance, most particularly the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services.
Instead, the cynical and well-paid staff of DARS and other irrelevant agencies attend meaningless conferences, viciously attack those who DO care about the elderly and disabled with malicious defamatory falsehoods, and blithely sweep any problems under the rug.
We could save a lot of money just by cutting out these middle men and women. After all, they just contribute to the problems posed by monsters like Scott Schuett by evading and twisting and hiding the awful truth.
I appreciate your response to Thelma, Anonymous.
ReplyDelete