County steps up fight against elder abuse

Efforts explained, warnings issued in awareness month

State authorities completed more than 17,000 investigations of reported elder abuse in Harris County and 12 surrounding counties in Southeast Texas last year, said the local director of Adult Protective Services, adding that in 12,400 cases abuse was validated.

In 2017, the agency investigations included more than 3,200 financial exploitation cases, 2,300 physical abuse cases and 221 cases of sexual abuse in the 13-county region, Houston District APS Director James Booker said.

Some of the hardest crimes to crack are ones in which the elderly are abused by people who are closest to them, a Harris County prosecutor said.

“Is a mom really going to file charges on her son who has been beating her daily?” Assistant District Attorney Mary McFaden said. “We have to say, ‘What is justice to the elder?’”

Harris County authorities, Crime Stoppers of Houston and other state agencies on Wednesday cautioned about various types of abuse that the elderly can face, during a news conference about Elder Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month, which is May.

Beware of scams

Some of the most prevalent abuses against the elderly are financial scams, such as fake calls from Medicare or the Internal Revenue Service, said Jennifer Salazar of the Better Business Bureau Education Foundation.

Those scammers are known to trick the elderly into forking over money or giving away personal information because they think they’re talking to a real government organization. But in almost no case would a government agency actually be calling you, Salazar said.

“You will get a call from the Queen of England before you get a call from Medicare,” Salazar said. “It’s not going to happen.”

Experts in geriatric medicine, protective services, civil and criminal prosecution, and law enforcement established the Senior Justice Assessment Center in June 2017 to help better investigate and prosecute all types of elder abuse cases.

Last year, the center worked with more than 120 people on elder abuse cases, Harris County Adult Services Administrator Claudia Gonzalez said. Numbers of prosecuted elderly abuse cases in the county were not available for time periods before and after the center was formed.

Convictions are hard to get for a number of reasons, however, including that some people who are abused have cognitive disabilities and that many abusers are children of the elderly, McFaden said. In some cases, financial settlements are paid or the affected elderly person is moved into better care, McFaden said.

At the news conference, Harris County legal authorities also released the names of 10 fugitives accused of hysically abusing the elderly. All are charged with causing injury to the elderly and have warrants out for their arrest, said the District Attorney’s Office.

“These are people who have punched elderly people in the face … attacked them with pepper spray, hit them in the face with a lamp, a baseball bat, choked them and tossed them on the concrete,” said Asst. Chief Tim Navarre of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

Powerful advocates

Experts speculate that the number of victims of elder abuse is much higher than reported. It is currently estimated that only 1 in 14 cases of elder abuse are reported, and a recent study found that 1 in 10 Americans older than 60 have suffered some form of abuse.

The number of people 60 and older is also rising. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Texas had about 3.8 million people in that range, or roughly 15 percent of the population. That number is expected to more than triple to 12 million by 2050.

The Houston Police Department is among the myriad organizations working to fight these types of crimes and has taken steps to improve interview practices for the elderly, especially those with cognitive impairments, Asst. Chief Wendy Baimbridge said.

“This very vulnerable population now has very powerful advocates,” Baimbridge said. “We are no longer working in silence.”

People with information on the 10 suspects are asked to call Crime Stoppers’ anonymous tip line at 713-222-8477. Anyone who has seen elder abuse is asked to call the Texas Abuse/Neglect hotline at 1-800-252-5400.