ALBANY, N.Y. — Ten years ago to the day, Michael Carey's son was killed by two men who were supposed to take care of him.
Jonathan Carey, 13, was an inpatient client at Oswald D. Heck Developmental Facility in 2007. Non-communicative and on the autism spectrum, Jonathan was supposed to be taking a trip to the mall. During an episode in a facility van, however, two state-authorized caretakers placed Jonathan in a chokehold that suffocated him.
A decade later and with only one of the convicted killers still in prison, Michael Carey is still affected by the loss of his son.
"Jonathan's death is a reminder to everybody," Carey said Wednesday, "that the New York State mental healthcare system is extremely dangerous and deadly."
Carey has been on a self-imposed crusade since 2007 to hold that same system accountable, and improve it for disabled patients. There have been some successes: Jonathan's Law was passed to improve parental access to institutional records; and in 2015, the state-run O.D. Heck Center where Jonathan died was closed.
Now, Carey is turning his focus to incident reporting. Hosting a news conference on Wednesday at the state Capitol, Carey pointed out that when abuse or neglect is discovered at state-authorized residential facilities for the disabled, the first report is made to the Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs. The agency was first proposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2012 and began operating in 2013.
But police and medical authorities are not called unless the Justice Center deems an abuse or neglect as a "safety or medical emergency." Abuses that are not deemed worthy of external reporting are instead investigated and disciplined internally.
"We are alleging that the Cuomo administration is actively involved in ensuring the cover up of the vast majority of reported incidents, including deaths," Carey said.
The Justice Center does not publish the number of 911 calls that are placed from its facilities. However, in its 2016 report the Justice Center said it has substantiated 11,254 abuse reports at disabled residences across the state. Only 114 of those were deemed worthy of criminal prosecution; the rest were ostensibly handled in-house.
"It's hard to fathom that this level of discrimination continues, to date," Carey said Wednesday. "But it does."
Carey is proposing legislation at the state level, which would require that every report of abuse at a state-authorized facility be accompanied by a 911 call. This would likely trigger more criminal investigations, and thus more criminal prosecutions, Carey said.
"Once this information goes out to the appropriate authorities — which are in place to protect everybody else — most of these facilities are going to be forced to clean up their act," Carey said.
The Justice Center shot back in a statement: “With all due respect to Mr. Carey and the somber nature of today, he is just plain wrong on the facts," the center wrote. "Every allegation of abuse or neglect that is reported to the Justice Center – whether criminal or non-criminal -- is fully investigated."
The center must also deem cases worthy of prosecution by weighing the amount of evidence available. In some cases, an administrative approach is seen as more appropriate than a criminal prosecution because it requires less-compelling evidence.
"The vast majority of cases investigated by the Justice Center do not allege conduct that would support a criminal prosecution," the Center wrote.
Carey plans to continue lobbying lawmakers to take up the 911 bill. He is also proposing legislation to install more surveillance cameras the facilities, test more thoroughly for radon gas poisoning, and limit the amount of hours caretakers can work — eliminating double and triple shifts, that may fatigue workers to the point of lashing out.