On May 15, 2022, Obiageriaku Iheanacho, a geriatric nursing assistant at a long-term care facility in Baltimore City, pushed Ellsworth Johnson-Bey, a dementia patient, to the ground during a dispute over a box of rubber gloves. The incident was recorded on surveillance video. Johnson-Bey was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital where he was diagnosed with a left hip fracture. He never got out of bed again. Johnson-Bey eventually contracted pneumonia, developed blood clots in his lungs and was diagnosed with COVID-19 before passing away at a local hospital later that year.

Because the incident was captured on video, our office was able to secure Iheanacho’s conviction and ensure that she will spend years in prison.

In April 2023, Asia Williams was working at the Linwood Center as a direct support professional providing one-to-one care for a developmentally delayed woman. When that woman arrived at school one morning in early April, she told her teacher that her back hurt and that Williams had physically and verbally abused her. The school nurse found extensive bruising on her body and scrapes on her stomach, buttocks and knees. A video recording from a camera inside the victim’s house later supported her story, helping law enforcement hold Williams accountable.

In April 2024, a neighbor’s security camera captured footage of an intellectually disabled man emerging from the side door of the neighboring residence and tossing a small object, later found to be a chicken bone, into the neighbor’s yard. As he tosses the object, Omubo Micah, the victim’s caregiver, comes up from behind, grabs him by the shirt and throws him inside. The recording depicted Micah assaulting the victim as he backed out of the camera’s view.

In each of these cases, the Attorney General’s Office obtained justice for victims and their families — justice that would not have been likely if these horrific crimes weren’t recorded on video.

Over the past year, our office’s Medicaid Fraud and Vulnerable Victims Unit has prosecuted 12 individuals and companies for abuse or neglect of vulnerable adults. These cases included residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities and those enrolled in programs for the developmentally disabled.

We were able to pursue four of those cases because the assaults were captured on camera.

Vulnerable victims’ cases are challenging. Many cases involve victims who cannot advocate for themselves, either because they are unable to speak, have memory issues or are too reliant on their abusers to come forward. Care providers who abuse the vulnerable can inflict pain on those entrusted to their care because they are often alone with their victims and know that their acts will not be reported. Unexplained injuries often go unaddressed, not because they are not investigated, but because there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges.

Video recordings give power back to the powerless. These recordings speak for the victims and enable our office to hold abusers accountable.

That is why the Office of the Attorney General is sponsoring a bill in the General Assembly that would require nursing homes and assisted living facilities to install cameras in common areas — such as hallways, cafeterias and activity rooms — and to make that footage available to law enforcement upon request. Currently, these facilities can choose — but are not required — to install their own video systems in shared spaces. Requiring video recording only in common areas is designed to strike a balance between accountability for abusers and the privacy of residents.

This is not the first time our office has asked legislators to help us protect vulnerable, elderly and disabled Marylanders. In past legislative sessions, we successfully petitioned the General Assembly to expand the Patients’ Bill of Rights to include residents of assisted living facilities and give our office the authority to seek injunctions on those residents’ behalf.

This bill would build on those efforts and help me keep all Marylanders safe, regardless of their age and whether they have a disability.

Those who live in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are not just residents. They are parents, grandparents, sons and daughters.

Surveillance cameras protect the people of Maryland and bear silent witness to events as they unfold.

Elderly residents and those with developmental disabilities are some of the most vulnerable people in Maryland — a marginalized, and growing, population. Protecting those who cannot protect themselves is one of my most important duties as attorney general. This bill will help my office continue to pursue justice on behalf of these Marylanders and their families.

Anthony G. Brown (oag@oag.state.md.us) is Maryland’s attorney general.