Killing at El Cajon nursing home
Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz….it’s Friday, September 9th.
The killing of an El Cajon nursing home resident raises questions about the facility. More on that next. But first... let’s do the headlines….
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San Diego will likely get a drenching today , as the long arms of Hurricane Kay reach the county.
National Weather Service officials say they expect plenty of local rainfall.
It is not common for San Diego to be within reach of a Pacific hurricane because the storms typically drift west.
But, this past week’s heat dome pulled this hurricane north, toward San Diego.
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Thursday was the state’s ninth straight day of flex alerts … with all of us asked to reduce our power usage during the record-breaking heatwave.
Kevin Geraghty of S-D-G-AND-E said the utility was seeing some relief in local demand yesterday.
“We know the cloud cover has actually reduced our demand here in San Diego county just a little bit. Across the state it's still very high. This is a statewide supply issue so we’re still monitoring all of that.”
He says to secure anything that’s loose outside as the storm comes with high winds that can do damage to power lines and cause outages.
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The San Diego Fire Rescue department is releasing official numbers from heat-related incidents at SnapDragon stadium over the past weekend.
Fire officials say they received multiple 9-1-1 calls during the S-D-S-U Football game and had to transport at least five people while helping others in distress..
S-D-S-U says free water was given out during the game and they are evaluating plans for future events at the stadium.
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From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now. Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
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The killing of a resident at an El Cajon nursing home raises questions about why the facility admitted a patient with a long history of severe psychiatric illness and allowed him to stay even though he had reportedly assaulted other residents.
In the second of a two-part series, KPBS reporter Amita Sharma examines this case.
Heads up….This story contains graphic descriptions that some audience members may find disturbing.
The warning to Sally Renee Johnson-Komzelman in early 2021 could not have been more ominous. Her 90-year-old father was being treated at Sharp Grossmont Hospital when a staff social worker warned her against returning him to Avocado Post Acute nursing home in El Cajon. “She said, `You don’t want to send him back there, it’s a terrible place.” The public record supports the social worker’s perception of Avocado. More than 600 complaints have been filed against Avocado since 2019. And in April, federal regulators moved to decertify the 256-bed facility, citing its failure to keep residents free of “abuse, neglect and exploitation.” Weeks later they reversed their decision, saying the facility had “returned to substantial compliance.” But back in February 2021, Johnson-Komzelman says she had no option other than to place her dad back at Avocado from Sharp Grossmont. She had just a few thousand dollars a month for his care and little time to find an alternative. Six months later, her father Robert Bradley was dead, allegedly murdered by his roommate, Bezaleel Jefferson. Again, Johnson-Komzelman. “This beautiful man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps during the depression and made a life for himself. You want your dad to die peacefully.” A caregiver found Bradley in his room at Avocado vomiting blood in the early hours of August 19, 2021, according to state investigators. P. 5…top paragraph that reads: The clinical record was reviewed on 9/1/21. According to the Progress Notes, dated 8/19/21, LN 1 documented that at 5:15 A.M. Resident 1 was noted with "brownish coffee ground/bright red emesis." )The autopsy report states Bradley had abrasions and contusions on his neck and died from strangulation. The San Diego County Medical Examiner ruled Bradley’s death a homicide. Johnson-Komzelman saw her father in hospice before he died. ”His tongue was swollen and purple. I saw scratch marks and gashes and abrasions around his throat. His whole neck was tremendously swollen. Jefferson admitted hitting Bradley before caregivers found him, according to El Cajon police records. San Diego County prosecutors charged Jefferson with Bradley’s murder last fall. But Jefferson was deemed not mentally competent to stand trial and sent to a psychiatric facility in San Bernardino, according to court records. Johnson-Komzelman and her siblings have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Avocado. The lawsuit claims Jefferson suffers from severe, chronic psychiatric illness and has been under multiple court-ordered conservatorships. The lawsuit also alleges that Avocado knew Jefferson had previously attacked other residents and refused to take his medication. of lawsuit p. 10 of the complain that says: his psychiatric illness is so severe, chronic, and unmanageable that he is a known danger to others and is so severely ill, he is unable to provide for his own, food, clothing, and shelter.Scott Fikes, a lawyer for Bradley’s family, said an Avocado nurse’s comments to El Cajon police are telling. “She told police that they were going to need their help removing Mr. Jefferson from the facility and that she was concerned if they did it without police help, that he would whip their ass.” Avocado, the California Department of Public Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services all refused to comment on Bradley’s death. Lawyer Ernie Tosh is an expert on federal rules governing nursing homes. He says nursing homes can admit mentally ill patients but it can be fraught. (B-roll of Tosh talking) (Ernie Tosh Avocado Finances) ”If the person is refusing to take their medication and you suspect could become violent in doing so, you have an absolute duty to the other residents to discharge that patient to protect the rest of your patients.” Johnson-Komzelman says she’s still haunted by how her father looked in his final hours in hospice. There was a part of me going, oh, my God, what happened? Oh, my God, this is someone that's gone through hell. And I wasn't there to protect him. That was the thing that bothered me the most. “ Amita Sharma, KPBS News.
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Like elsewhere around the world, San Diegans are mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth the second.
KPBS reporter Tania Thorne has more.
Shakespeare Pub and Grille is a local eatery with British style comfort food in San Diego. “Gutted. Absolutely gutted. We all were shocked. It seems to have happened really quickly.” NICOLA MCEWAN-BEATTY is the general manager of the pub. She says since the news broke her phone has been ringing non stop and she anticipates customers coming in to mourn the Queen's death.“We anticipate a lot of expats coming in to be with each other and to celebrate her life. She's gonna be with her husband, the love of her life and that is the only consolation we have right now.” Craig Tolson, the president of the House of England in Balboa Park, was still letting the news sink in. “Everything’s happened so fast, news has traveled so fast trying to figure out what everybodys doing The Queen's funeral will be held after ten days of mourning. Both the House of England and Shakespeare Pub will host events for San Diegans to attend. TT KPBS News
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Coming up.... We have some weekend arts events worth checking out. We’ll have that and more, just after the break.
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Last night FilmOut kicked off its 22nd year of showcasing L-G-B-T-Q movies in San Diego.
For the next three days the festival will host screenings of shorts, features and documentaries at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park.
KPBS arts reporter Beth Accomando spoke with three filmmakers whose works will be screened at the festival.
Programming a film festival is like making a mix tape. You need to make sure there’s variety and balance to what you select. For 22 years FilmOut has been offering a showcase of LGBTQ films from around the globe and across a broad range of genres. This year you can find rom-coms, art house films, documentaries and horror. Filmmaker Carter Smith says horror has always been queer. CARTER SMITH Horror has always been stories of outsiders and monsters and people seen as monsters and sort of unconventional heroes or heroines fighting back against the monster. There's a queerness that's kind of always been there and I think only recently have films and books and stories are starting to come out where queer people are at the center of those stories. Smith’s film Swallowed ventures into a sub genre he has always been drawn to -- body horror. CARTER SMITH As a queer kid growing up in the early nineties, I sort of came of age when I was pretty afraid of my body and pretty afraid of sex. AIDS was the forefront of everything, and every mole or rash was like, I was convinced that I was going to die. And I was petrified of sex. There was this real sense that horror and sex and the body were sort of tied together in a way that I don't think I've ever quite been able to shake. Smith looks forward to the in-person screening on Saturday because he likes to watch audiences watch his film. CARTER SMITH It's been amazing to sit in the theater and watch people kind of squirm in their seats and gasp and at the end, talking to people afterwards to find people, like crying and sort of touched by this kind of tender love story that's hiding at the heart of this really messed up sort of body horror film. Benjamin Howard’s Rendezvous is not body horror but it did present the filmmaker with something scary – shooting his first sex scene. BENJAMIN HOWARD The short explores a number of things, one of which is kind of the gray areas of consent. It's not easy, and so you want to tread lightly. You want to make sure that everyone is very comfortable. We had an intimacy coordinator on set who was phenomenal to work with. Amanda Blumenthal is her name, and she really kind of made the difference between me just coming into this scared out of my mind, and me approaching this like, okay, cool. Howard grew up in San Diego but Rendezvous was a class project at UCLA. BENJAMIN HOWARD You ask yourself, well, what's my end goal? If my end goal is to make a feature version of something, but I don't quite have the means to do that just yet. Okay, great. Start with the proof of concept. Maybe you take a scene from that feature script and you turn that into a short. And that's basically what we did with Rendezvous. Another film with local roots is Moving Out. Filmmaker Rachel Earnest shot the short film in her hometown of Oceanside. RACHEL EARNEST It is a work of fiction, but it does hit very close to home. And so I would say seeing who supported the film and who didn't was both exhilarating and very moving at times, and then at other times, it was painful, I would say. The church administration scenes where her character overhears a man asking about gay marriage were shot at Earnest’s childhood church. RACHEL EARNEST So in general, for our protagonist Sam, I think growing up in this church community has mostly been a loving experience. But there's a part of it that really isn't loving and accepting for her as a queer person. Earnest is looking forward to screening her short at FilmOut. RACHEL EARNEST I have all these people from the church community who are coming out to this LGBTQ festival, and I think it's amazing. I honestly never thought that this could happen. FilmOut will be making amazing things happen through Sunday at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park. Beth Accomando, KPBS News.
FilmOut continues through Sunday at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park.
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And before you go, we have a preview of weekend arts events for you.
Here’s KPBS Arts producer Julia Dixon Evans speaking with Jade Hindmon about her recommendations for the weekend.
That was KPBS Arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans, speaking with KPBS Midday Edition host, Jade Hindmon.
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That’s it for the podcast today. This podcast is produced by KPBS Senior Producer Brooke Ruth and Producer Emilyn Mohebbi. We’d like to thank this week’s guest hosts Matt Hoffman and Erik Anderson for filling in. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.
