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Photo Gallery | PHOTOS: California Watch investigates Office of Protective Services

PHOTOS: California Watch investigates Office of Protective Services
Submitted by Maneeza Iqbal
Friday, February 24th, 2012, 1:10am
The interiors of California’s developmental centers look like nursing homes or long-term care hospitals. The state plans to close this facility, the Lanterman Developmental Center in Los Angeles County
Carlos Puma/California Watch
Stephanie Contreras created a photo collage showing her brother, Timothy Lazzini, with family and friends. Lazzini, a resident of the Sonoma Developmental Center, suffered from cerebral palsy.
Monica Lam/California Watch
Stephanie Contreras reads through the case file on her brother, Timothy Lazzini, a 25-year-old quadriplegic who died of internal bleeding in 2005. An autopsy revealed two large, Q-tip-like swabs stuck in his stomach.
Monica Lam/California Watch
Dr. Van A. Peña says he was fired from the Sonoma Developmental Center after speaking up about the facility’s failure to properly investigate abuse allegations.
Monica Lam/California Watch
Former Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, a Mountain View Democrat, said a 2002 audit of the Office of Protective Services “exposed a complete lack of infrastructure and control command and accountability.”
Monica Lam/California Watch
A decade ago, the state attorney general’s office directed state officials to “recruit and hire a highly qualified and experienced law enforcement candidate” for police chief of the Office of Protective Services.
Monica Lam/California Watch
Terri Delgadillo, director of the Department of Developmental Services, said she has hired a consultant to advise her office on practices at the Office of Protective Services.
Monica Lam/California Watch
At his home in San Diego, Larry Ingraham constructed a memorial to his brother, Van, who died after an injury at Fairview Developmental Center.
Photo by Nadia Borowski Scott
The interiors of California’s developmental centers look like nursing homes or long-term care hospitals. The state plans to close this facility, the Lanterman Developmental Center in Los Angeles County.
Carlos Puma/California Watch
Larry Ingraham (left) and friend Donovan Jacobs look through the case files they have accumulated on Van Ingraham’s death.
Photo by Nadia Borowski Scott
Detective Peter Mastrosimone, who joined the Office of Protective Services in 1996, assisted in the investigation of Van Ingraham’s death at Fairview Developmental Center.
Photo by Larry Ingraham
After spending six days in a Newport Beach hospital, Van Ingraham died just minutes after midnight on June 12, 2007.
Photo by Larry Ingraham
Fairview’s Johannes Sotingco, shown in a video from a civil trial deposition, was Van Ingraham’s caregiver on the day of his fatal injury.
Courtesy of Larry Ingraham and Donovan Jacobs
An X-ray of Van Ingraham’s neck shows a severe spinal break that two medical experts said likely came from a headlock.
Courtesy of Larry Ingraham
Van Ingraham, pictured a year before his death with his brother, Larry Ingraham, at Fairview Developmental Center, loved to drink sugary sodas.
Courtesy of Larry Ingraham
Van Ingraham slept in a sterile room at Fairview Developmental Center, which he shared with three other men. A handwritten sign reads, “Van’s bed.”
Courtesy of Larry Ingraham

California has assembled a unique police force to protect about 1,800 of its most vulnerable patients - men and women with cerebral palsy, severe autism and other mental disabilities who live in state institutions and require round-the-clock monitoring and protection from abuse.

But an investigation by California Watch has found that detectives and patrol officers at the state's five board-and-care institutions routinely fail to conduct basic police work even when patients die under mysterious circumstances.

Most abuse cases simply are logged but never prosecuted, including the suspicious death of a severely autistic man whose neck was broken. Three medical experts said the 50-year-old patient, Van Ingraham, likely had been killed. But the center's detective, a former nurse who'd never investigated a suspicious death, failed to identify what - or who - had caused the fatal injury.

RELATED STORY: Police force's sloppy investigations leave abuse of disabled unsolved

RELATED STORY: State agency's police chiefs lack law enforcement experience

RELATED STORY: Basic police work ignored in autistic patient's suspicious death

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