Portland’s behavioral health hospital knew a patient had repeatedly vocalized violent fantasies about smashing in a woman’s head but discharged him anyway onto the street outside — where the man immediately did just that, a lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges.
Sonya Gonzales was waiting for her son to pick her up from work Aug. 9 when a man wearing green hospital scrubs slammed a 34-pound boulder into the back of her skull, sending her reeling into a concrete wall, according to the suit and court records.
Gonzales was lying on the ground and bleeding heavily from her head when she regained consciousness, according to the lawsuit.
Dwayne A. Simpson, 40, was arrested that day on allegations including second-degree assault in the attack. Simpson told police he had just been released from the Unity Center for Behavioral Health, according to a bail memo.
Officers who responded to the attack recognized him from an encounter about three weeks earlier when Simpson started screaming he was “going to bash a woman’s skull in,” according to the memo.
Gonzales seeks $4 million from the Unity Center, alleging the hospital released Simpson even as center officials knew he “posed a danger of violence to others.”
“When you hold yourself out as a resource in the community to address people that are having mental health crises and that may pose a danger to others, then you have a responsibility to fulfill that work,” said Gonzales’ attorney, Peter Janci.
Simpson’s mental health treatment first appears in court records on July 24, when he was heard shouting threats near Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, was taken inside the hospital and then discharged an hour later, according to the suit.
After the first discharge, police responded to the hospital after someone heard Simpson mouthing threats about smashing a woman’s head in, but officers were unable to find him, according to the bail memo.
On Aug. 5, Simpson shattered a parked car’s front and rear windshields and told a gas station clerk he wanted to “kill everyone,” according to the lawsuit. Police arrested him on two counts of second-degree criminal mischief, court records show, and a judge issued a warrant after he failed to show up in court the next day.
The lawsuit and court records don’t explain why Simpson was lodged at Unity on Aug. 9 or what treatment he received, if any, but Janci said he will seek Simpson’s medical records as part of the lawsuit.
Simpson was arrested inside the downtown jail in January after he allegedly splashed urine on a corrections deputy and a nurse, but charges of aggravated harassment were later dropped. Simpson is currently being held at the Oregon State Hospital.
Gonzales, a lab tech at the Legacy Research Institute housed in another part of the Unity campus, required 10 skull staples after her concussion and has been on long-term disability leave due to her injuries and PTSD, according to the suit.
“It’s been a life-changing experience for her,” Janci said. “It has eroded her sense of safety and had a lot of other lasting impacts.”
Unity didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
— Zane Sparling; zsparling@oregonian.com; 503-319-7083; @pdxzane
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