COFAR blog

Anthony Remillard, an intellectually disabled man who fatally assaulted another man at the former Templeton Developmental Center in 2013, has been released from prison to a group home amid lingering questions about his supervision.

Dennis Perry, who was also intellectually disabled, died in the sudden and unprovoked attack in which Remillard shoved him against the side of a boiler in the dairy barn of the former facility.

Nancy Perry Mias, Dennis Perry’s sister, told us in September that she had been notified that Remillard, who was convicted of the crime and served seven years in prison, has been placed in a group home funded by the Department of Developmental Services (DDS).

Nancy said her concern is for the residents at the group home, as Remillard obviously has violent tendencies and probably didn’t get the help he needs while in prison. “I do have sympathy for this man,” she wrote to us in an email, “but I just feel as if the other families at the group home could be blindsided as we were, when we found out his history.”

In response to a Public Records Law request we sent to DDS in September, the Department responded that it does not have specific policies to alert the police, families, the community, or other residents when people with violent or criminal tendencies are placed in group homes.

DDS does provide special staff training, known as Crisis Prevention, Response and Restraint (CPRR), in group homes that house persons with potentially violent behaviors, an official stated. But it is not clear whether the group home to which Remillard has been admitted has implemented the CPRR curriculum, as specified in DDS regulations.

We’ve blogged about this case a number of times, also questioning the lack of supervision of Remillard at Templeton. We’ve also questioned whether it was appropriate to place him in prison where he wasn’t likely to get treatment, but would possibly be exposed to even more violence.

While Templeton was a functioning Intermediate Care Facility (ICF), it housed a number of clients with violent behaviors. But Remillard was a resident there after the facility was targeted for closure and was being phased down. Templeton was closed in 2015.

Although an internal DDS investigation of Perry’s murder cleared the Templeton staff of any omissions of care, we raised questions about the lack of thoroughness of the DDS report and the fact that the Department was essentially investigating itself in the matter.

In September, after learning of Remillard’s release from prison, we filed the public records request to determine what policies DDS has to protect other residents and the community when potentially violent residents are placed in DDS facilities. We asked, among other things, for any policies to alert the police and other residents and guardians and members of the community to the criminal backgrounds of clients in group homes.

DDS stated that it doesn’t have any policies of its own on alerting family members or the police in those cases. The DDS response stated only that the Department “supports” clients in following laws requiring them to register as sex offenders or to report to law enforcement or probation.

The only thing DDS stated that it has specifically done to ensure the safety of clients in these cases is to have developed the CPRR training program for staff of facilities with residents who have violent behaviors. As part of the their response to us, DDS included an “approved CPRR” workbook, dated 2017 and titled, “Proactive Approaches to Behavioral Challenges.”

The focus of the workbook is on “de-escalation and prevention of challenging behaviors.” The document describes a 20-hour training curriculum, and states that staff in group homes with potentially violent residents receive 1-year certifications in the use of “least restrictive techniques” and in the use of restraints as a last resort.

The workbook discusses the importance of providing reassurance and support to residents who exhibit “challenging behavior.” It states that many people who become violent do so out of feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability. The workbook suggests that “helping this person feel stronger and safer is a major means of reducing the probability of aggression.”

The workbook also states that most people exhibit “cues” or warning signs of aggression, and that “knowledge of these and their typical order of occurrence is a key to having a positive outcome to the situation.”

The workbook then lists several handholds and other techniques as “a last resort” to control physically aggressive individuals who endanger themselves, staff, or others. The techniques are presented in a sequence of least restrictive actions to most restrictive.

We assume, or hope, that Remillard has been sent to a group home that provides that training. We have no way, however, of evaluating the quality of the training described.

Ultimately, a single training curriculum is probably not sufficient to ensure the proper supervision of potentially violent individuals in the DDS system, and to keep other residents and the community safe.

This case is yet another reason to question the state’s longstanding policy of closing highly supervised ICF-level facilities such as Templeton, and then privatizing those functions.

But those types of questions have not been raised in recent years by the Legislature or successive administrations about either this case or any number of other abuse and neglect cases that afflict the DDS system with tragic regularity. The Legislature’s Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities Committee has blown opportunity after opportunity to examine these systemic problems.

The Committee is a symbol of legislative failure in this regard, but it is hardly alone in that. The state Attorney General’s Office has similarly failed to take action to protect persons with developmental disabilities.

Nancy Perry Mias and other members of her family initially sought help from members of the state’s congressional delegation in obtaining an independent investigation of the DDS system in the immediate aftermath of Dennis Perry’s killing. They met with the staff of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and with Representative Jim McGovern himself.