news-record.com

RALEIGH (MCT) — An employee at a state mental hospital in Butner was fired and arrested last month after being caught on video choking a child.

Ronald Williams, 49, a health-care technician, is charged with assault on a handicapped person, a misdemeanor.

An incident report released Friday shows that Williams was arrested Sept. 17 after a patient's allegation. The patient said that Williams had assaulted him four days earlier following an argument.

After a review of tape from one of the hospital's security cameras, "it was confirmed that the victim had been choked by Ron Williams and he was also pushed in the chest," according to the report.

Williams of Oxford could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

After the tape showed the assault occurred "without provocation," Central Regional administrators called Butner Public Safety, a state law enforcement agency that polices the hospital.

Williams was fired Sept. 30.

Lanier Cansler, secretary of health and human services, said Williams' termination is in line with the agency's zero tolerance policy, which was implemented this year after a string of assaults on patients at state mental facilities.

''Patient safety is our focus and our primary concern, and we will not tolerate any behavior that does not adhere to our rules of policy and procedure for patient care," Cansler said.

Though the hospital referred the case to law enforcement, the department made no public acknowledgement of the assault until The News & Observer filed a public records request last week.

Renee McCoy, a spokeswoman for the department, said it is not the agency's policy to notify the public when an employee is arrested and accused of assaulting a patient.

The juvenile status of the patient led to the name being redacted from public records, said Ernie Seneca, spokesman for the state Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, which includes Butner Public Safety.

The report describes Williams as 6 foot 2 inches tall and 230 pounds. The report did not specify the size of the child, but Seneca described the patient as a teenager.

Williams had worked for the state since 1982, according to his personnel records. He is set to appear in court Oct. 28.

Court records show Williams has faced criminal charges on several occasions, including arrests in the past 10 years for assault with a deadly weapon, marijuana possession, resisting a public officer, possession of stolen goods, obtaining property by false pretenses and communicating threats.

He is the second worker at Central Regional in the past year to be accused of assaulting a child.

Hilbert Reddick was charged in February with assault of a child under 12 and assault on a handicapped person over allegations involving an 8-year-old boy. Court records indicate those charges were dropped.