Police have issued arrest warrants for six employees of a Texas state home accused of staging or failing to report after-hours fights between mentally disabled residents, and they say more arrests are possible.
The six Corpus Christi State School employees were among 11 identified by police in 20 videos of the fights at the facility, some of which date back to 2007, Corpus Christi police Capt Tim Wilson said.
All six are charged with causing injury to a disabled person.
Five of them - Timothy Dixon, 30, Jesse Salazar, 25, Guadalupe Delarosa, 21, Vince Johnson, 22 and Dangelo Riley, 22 - are charged with a third-degree felony, with a bond of $US30,000 ($NZ57,670).
The sixth, Stephanie Garza, 21, is charged with a state jail felony for failing to stop or report the fights. Her bond was set at $US15,000.
Johnson was in custody on Thursday afternoon, Wilson said.
Attempts to reach the six for comment were not immediately successful. Police said they didn't know which attorneys were representing the six, and a call to the union that represents state workers seeking comment was not immediately returned.
Police learned of the fights last week after someone gave an off-duty officer Dixon's cell phone containing videos of the brawls, Wilson said. The videos show mentally disabled male residents fighting each other while the employees watch, he said.
Four of the 11 employees identified in the videos, including Delarosa and Riley, are no longer working at the facility, said Laura Albrecht, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Aging and Disability Services, which runs the facility. The other seven were placed on emergency leave last week, and are in the process of being fired.
The six charged on Thursday were identified in videos of fights in which residents were injured, Wilson said.
The fights are only the latest example of abuse or mismanagement at Texas' large homes for the mentally disabled, which are known as state schools.
A 2008 Department of Justice report cited negligent and abusive care that violated residents' rights. It cited 53 deaths linked to preventable conditions at the institutions.
The report also called hundreds of reports of abuse and injuries to patients "disturbingly high" and said more than half of state facilities are in danger of losing Medicaid funding because of care and safety problems.
The state Legislature is considering measures to tighten standards at the institutions, including requiring fingerprinting, background checks and random drug testing of all employees. Lawmakers also want to create an independent ombudsman to investigate injuries and deaths and oversee an abuse-and-neglect telephone hot line.
Gov Rick Perry has ordered a moratorium on new admissions to the Corpus Christi facility and demanding the installation of security cameras.
