Before he died, staff at a state facility choked a nonverbal man with towels and bed sheets until he lost consciousness, a lawsuit claims.
For nine years, Shermaine Brooks lived at the Robert M. Greer Center in Enid, a facility for people with developmental disabilities and mental health conditions, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims abuse from staff ultimately caused Brooks’ death, which happened roughly six months after reports of widespread systemic abuse of residents at the Greer Center became public. Staff were accused of beating, choking and bribing residents to attack each other.
An Enid Police Department investigation remains open after Brooks died over Memorial Day weekend 2024. No criminal charges have been filed. Nearly a year after his death, the state medical examiner hasn’t released an autopsy report.
Some of the circumstances of Brooks’ death are “consistent” with other abuse allegations at the Greer Center and give “reason to believe that the death of Shermaine is tied to abuse that he received at Greer,” said Monica Maple, the lawyer representing Brooks’ family in the civil case.
The lawsuit accuses Oklahoma Human Services and Liberty of Oklahoma, the company that previously managed Greer, of failing to protect residents from abuse. Liberty of Oklahoma has denied all allegations in court and pushed to have parts of the case dismissed. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
Oklahoma Human Services has asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it is exempt from liability in this case under state law and is not responsible for the actions of independent contractors. The agency told The Frontier that it can’t comment on open litigation but that two state investigations by health inspectors and an oversight office “there was no wrongdoing” regarding Brooks’ death.
The Oklahoma Disability Law Center, a group that advocates for the rights of people with disabilities, launched its own probe of abuse allegations at Greer, including a review of Brooks’ death. After looking at Brooks’ health and client records, Joy Turner, the director of investigations and monitoring, said the organization believes staff at the Greer Center and a hospital that treated him “failed to act in an appropriate manner.” Turner said she couldn’t provide more detailed information due to confidentiality concerns.
Family members of former and current Greer residents and advocates say they are still searching for accountability after the Garfield County District Attorney’s office dropped criminal charges last year against seven former Greer staff members accused of abuse after failing to locate a key witness. That individual was later found and was interviewed earlier this year, according to Enid police, but charges have yet to be refiled. Garfield County District Attorney Tommy Humphries did not respond to several requests for comment.
Liberty of Oklahoma stopped managing the Greer Center earlier this year, and the state’s oversight office was moved to a new agency. But many advocates and families feel like the situation is still unresolved.
“The state needs to do more to ensure this never happens again,” Turner said.
Lawsuits claim one resident was blinded and another suffered a broken femur
Several former residents and their guardians have ongoing lawsuits against the Greer Center.
One lawsuit claims a resident suffered a broken femur but staff didn’t document any explanation of how the injury happened. The same lawsuit describes a woman who suffered two detached retinas and the eventual removal of both her eyes with minimal documentation explaining what happened. The lawsuit claims a staffer allegedly punched and slapped this client in the face and later told other residents to say the client had poked herself in the eyes. A similar incident is referenced in other lawsuits.
Another lawsuit includes fourteen plaintiffs who allege staff strangled residents with sheets and threatened to retaliate against those who reported abuse. Staff allowed one client to wander off in a snowstorm who later needed treatment for frostbite, the lawsuit claims.
Jamie Owens’ son, Matthew, lived at Greer for four years until she removed him from the facility in 2023 after multiple instances of finding him badly bruised, she said. Liberty denied in court documents that her son was removed because the management company failed to keep him safe.
Owens, who is one of the guardians suing the state and Liberty, said her son told her he was being beaten. Matthew has both intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses, with the capacity of “a four-year-old child,” Owens claims in the lawsuit. When she asked about her son’s injuries, Greer administrators told her Matthew was psychotic, hallucinating and bumping into furniture, she said. Owens took Matthew to a hospital after removing him from the Greer Center, where staff initially told her it looked like he’d been strangled, she said.
Five former Greer Center staffers who were arrested on charges of caretaker abuse in 2023 were accused of abusing Matthew, according to police records. Matthew described this abuse to police, saying staff bribed another resident to beat him up and multiple other staffers also physically assaulted him, according to court records. A state advocacy office also substantiated an allegation that a staffer had choked Matthew in 2023, records show. Owens’ lawsuit describes staff using bedsheets and towels to strangle Matthew until he lost consciousness, then striking him in the stomach until he woke up.
Owens said she was disappointed when the Garfield County District Attorney’s office dropped criminal charges. She said she hasn’t received any updates from the prosecutor on the cases.
“I think they’re just letting these people go and not doing a thing,” Owens said. Once home, her son struggled with sleep and stress, she said. He doesn’t know the cases were dismissed. “Matt thinks they’re in jail, and I just let him think that.”
Community members protested outside of the Garfield County courthouse after the criminal cases were dismissed, saying more should have been done to prosecute those accused of abuse.
Now, a group of Garfield County residents is circulating a petition to convene a grand jury to investigate the Garfield County District Attorney’s office. The petition accuses the district attorney’s office of neglecting its duties by failing to prosecute Greer Center staffers accused of abuse.
Suspected abuse reported before man’s death
Last year, details about Brooks’ death were scarce. Brooks was taken to an Enid-area hospital where he later died. Initially, Enid police said they were investigating but could not give additional details about any existing medical conditions Brooks had or if there were concerns over abuse or neglect.
At least one instance of suspected abuse involving Brooks was reported to police and to a state advocate before his death, one former Greer Center staffer said. The Frontier is not naming the staffer because of safety and legal concerns.
In the spring of 2023, a Greer Center staffer wrote in an incident report shared with The Frontier that Brooks had been yelling and hitting himself. The staffer wrote that he tried to stop Brooks, but the resident tried to hit and bite him. Brooks then used his left hand to hit himself in the face, causing a bloody gash under his right eye, according to the incident report. The former staffer who spoke with The Frontier suspected abuse caused the gash under Brooks’ eye and sent photos of Brooks’ injury to a state advocate to investigate, according to texts shared with The Frontier.
The incident was also reported to Enid police in June 2023, according to court documents, but the department told The Frontier there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges.
In December 2023, the Oklahoma State Department of Health released the first of several investigations at the Greer Center related to the alleged abuse, citing the facility for failing to protect clients and investigate and report abuse. Citations for failing to report and investigate abuse and staffing problems continued into early 2024. And the state found serious safety violations at the facility again in April 2024.
The Health Department cited the Greer Center again in June 2024 — a few days after Brooks’ death — for failing to document changes in a client’s medical condition, according to state records. The Health Department said it couldn’t confirm that the citation was related to Brooks because of privacy laws.
State investigators noted that on Sunday, May 26, 2024, one of Greer’s daily observation logs said the client in question had eaten well and spent time with a brother. There was no note of coughing or wheezing or any notification to the nursing staff of symptoms, though the family member later told investigators the client had mild wheezing that day. A staffer also said the client was coughing, had a runny nose and seemed tired during the day and that they reported those symptoms to the nurse, though they didn’t include that in the client’s file.
A supervision log that is supposed to be updated every 30 minutes did not have any additional documentation of the client’s activities or health conditions for 11 hours on May 26, according to state records. But an injury report from 7:30 p.m. on that same day noted that another resident hit the man, but there were no injuries or pain. Thirty minutes later, staff noted that they contacted doctors because the client was “making audible wheezing sounds,” according to records. There was no record of whether the man saw a nurse.
The next day, a staffer wrote that the client had slept well. Later, a staffer told state investigators that the client had “sounded worse than the day before” and they had reported it to a nurse.
The results of Brooks’ autopsy could determine whether anyone is arrested and charged, Enid police said.
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