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Police Identify Group Home Stabbing Victim

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Updated: 12/13/2012 10:32 pm
(MOBILE, Ala)  A group home for adults became a crime scene Wednesday night, the site where one resident stabbed another to death, police said. According to a Mobile Police spokesperson, detectives had detained the man they thought was responsible. The victim has been identified as Derrick Wood, 32.

"It's not going to be clear what, if any, charges are going to be filed," Mobile Police Cpl. Chris Levy said.

The incident happened around 5:30 p.m. at the end of Country Wood Court, he said. What some would see as another sad case of one person taking another person's life, came as no surprise to people who live near the group home.

"Nope don't surprise me at all," Rick Finney said from his driveway on it's just a wonder it ain't these neighbors around here." He said residents of the home have been a problem for a long time, adding he's called police 15 times in the past year to report residents wandering onto neighbors' property. Both his brother and sister have already moved away from the neighborhood.

"They almost broke into her house in the kids' bedroom window and that scared them," Finney said, "They walk up to my door so much, i try to make them think I'm crazier than they are."

Finney said he took his concerns to the offices of Altapointe, the company that runs the home, but claims nothing has changed.

When it comes to safety and security for staff, residents and the public, Altapointe spokesperson Carol Mann said by phone Wednesday night, "Staff is on site 24 hours a day," adding "there were a lot of calls to police when younger patients were there," but said, she "Was not aware of any problems since the adults moved in."
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The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Local 15

bamapossum - 12/7/2012 6:51 PM
0 Votes
"...deemed ready for community placement..."; by whom? The fourth-yr psychology major that pts. see in lieu of a psychiatrist? Or perhaps the nurse practioner who is in charge of prescribing psychoactive drugs? The much-vaunted '24 hour supervision' is provided by an untrained minimum-wage employee.One employee per house of 12-15 pts. Money-taxpayer money-flows through Altapointe with little oversight. Supervisors,assistant supervisors,deputy assistant supervisors run their little piece of Altapointe as their own private fiefdoms,with rampant favoritism.The feds and the Ala. Medicaid Agency should clean house at Altapointe;perhaps this horrible event will prompt closer scrutiny.

Peacemaker - 12/7/2012 10:37 AM
0 Votes
It's amazing how disgruntled, former employees come out of the woodwork to criticize an organization they left behind OR that they were asked to leave. Federal government mandates that mental health patients must be placed in the least restrictive environment. We will always have people that are so sick they need to be in a locked environment. Those that are deemed ready for community placement by the courts must have somewhere to go. Behaviors rarely can be predicted; that's why these individuals need care and oversight. Maybe Margaret and Bobby9 would rather they were on the streets?

Mayhem Man - 12/6/2012 6:03 PM
3 Votes
Old Charlie Manson pretty much got it right it... “You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody's crazy.”

bamapossum - 12/6/2012 5:28 PM
2 Votes
I am a former employee of Altapointe,and can attest that 'Margarets' cooments are spot on.The '24 hour supervision' consists of a minimally-literate unskilled drop-out who has no experience in the mental-health field.'Consumers' with prior violent histories are allowed total freedom to leave the premise in search of crack,meth,ect.Mix prescribed high-dosage psychoactive pharmaceuticals with street dope and you have a highly volatile situation in a person who may already have poor impulse control and unstable temperament.With Searcy closure,there will be even more of these group homes in neighborhoods.

Bobby9 - 12/6/2012 3:20 PM
2 Votes
THIS is exactly why we need MORE of these groups out in the neighborhoods! Let's put a couple more in Country Club Estates, too! Altapointe spokeswoman Carol Mann is either a pathological liar OR she's got her head stuck so far up her anal cavity that she is totally out of reality! (Maybe she should be living at the group home, too?)

Margaret - 12/5/2012 10:30 PM
2 Votes
I worked as a nurse when it was Mobile Mental Health. The situation in those homes are horrible. The people who work in them are, for the most part, untrained and have a tendency to sleep during their shifts. The good workers and there are a few, are not aware that they may be alone with men who have long police records and some have even been found "not guilty by reason of insanity" of murder, rape, arson etc. Half the time the phones in the group homes didn't work so the staff couldn't call for help if they needed it. The group homes are supposed to be a way for mental patients to become accustomed to living in society. The patients are supposed to meet certain criteria but most of them do not and never will be fit to safely live in society and too many of them are not even mental patients. They are criminals who have learned to use the mental health system. I quit after only a couple of months. I had been a psych nurse for more than 25 years but had never worked in conditions as dangerous as those that are required of the staff there.
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