Injured guards ferried via ride-share after patient attack

TRENTON >> A ride-share driver received a shock this week when showing up for what they thought was another runof-the-mill fare.

Three injured guards were waiting for the driver at the troubled Ann Klein Forensic Center.

One of the guards — identified as Officer Anwar AbdulHaqq — was bleeding profusely from his head following an attack by a mentally disturbed patient, which occurred Monday, according to sources.

Two other guards were also roughed up while pulling the patient, Edward Sherwood, off their colleague, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.

Sherwood attacked the officer from behind, attempting to gouge his eyes out, and then punching the officer in the face as he fell to the ground, the sources said.

“I’m not exaggerating when I say [the patient] is like something out of the movies,” one source said, describing Sherwood as a towering man, around 6 feet 8 inches tall and 300 pounds. “His mental illness has him to a state where he’s not in control of what he does. He tried to rip Officer Haqq’s eyes out of his head. He reached from behind and raked across his eyes, and then just started to pummel him. It was a very bloody scene. It was bad.”

Instead of calling an ambulance for the battered and bleeding Abdul-Haqq, a supervisor summoned for an Uber ride, sources said. The sources were unable to identify the supervisor who called the rideshare services.

Uber did not respond to an emailed request for comment, and The Trentonian was unable to independently confirm whether it was Uber or another ride-share service that picked up the three injured guards.

Abdul-Haqq did not respond to a message seeking comment.

The Department of Health, which oversees the psychiatric center, said the attack is being investigated and declined to address why an ambulance wasn’t called for the guards.

The guards reportedly crammed into the ride-share vehicle once officials learned the only remaining transport vehicle at the 200-bed facility wouldn’t start, sources said.

The remaining vans, used to take patients to doctor appointments and court dates, were all being used at the time of the attack.

According to sources, injured officers are normally transported by ambulance or one of the half-dozen vans in the forensic center’s fleet to the hospital, depending on the severity of the injuries.

But Abdul-Haqq’s trip was anything but normal, the sources said, as he and the other two guards, who reportedly haven’t returned to work, were also taken to an urgent care center rather than the hospital.

Guards told the newspaper they were outraged, wondering what would have happened if Abdul-Haqq required medical attention on the way over.

“He was laid out on the floor. He was bleeding. They should have called an ambulance. You don’t play with that . ... It’s never happened before,” one source said. “At this point, I think that people are done being outraged. What can we do? We just sit back and laugh. It’s an uncomfortable, sad laugh. It’s a joke in there. Somebody is going to end up getting killed.”

Another security guard speculated that upper brass didn’t want “more bad publicity” that comes with having multiple ambulances show up at the psychiatric center at once, knowing word would spread.

The forensic center has been dogged by a number of embarrassing and dangerous incidents in the past. Patients are responsible for the vast majority of violence at Ann Klein, according to statistics reviewed by The Trentonian.

Despite being an accredited institution, Ann Klein Forensic Center has been sued multiple times in recent years in connection with assaults or patient abuse.

The Trenton-based facility has documented over 350 substantiated assaults in 2014, and employees said the workplace became more hostile ever since the New Jersey Department of Health implemented administrative changes that ended a former lockdown policy, effectively giving Ann Klein patients more freedom to jaunt through the premises.

Sources blamed that policy for allowing Sherwood, who reportedly was involved in other encounters with guards prior to the the attack on Abdul-Haqq, was allowed to roam “free as a bird.”

Other notable documented instances of violence at the facility include:

• In 2018, a woman was allegedly gang-raped by several male patients at the facility the day after Thanksgiving. Prosecutors quietly closed the case without charging any of those allegedly involved in the brutal sexual assault, citing lack of evidence.

• Also, patient Dwayne Hester was indicted in the heinous beating of 55-year-old Daniel Rodriguez, who later died.