BROCKTON, Mass. (AP) — The state attorney general’s office has announced that it will review the 2009 death of a mentally ill man at Bridgewater State Hospital.
Joshua Messier, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, died after guards secured him in restraints on a bed. The death was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner, but no one was ever criminally charged. Several guards and administrators were disciplined.
Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a statement the circumstances of Messier’s death “warrant a thorough review … to ensure that we are treating people with mental illness humanely and in a way that represents the best efforts to help them.”
Coakley’s decision came on the same day Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz’s office said it had determined there’s insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges in the case.