The lawsuit alleges that an ABA employee picked up Y.P. by his collar, flailed him around and then pushed him into a corner with her hands around his neck while others stood by and did nothing.
When Wesley Gould, the attorney working the case on behalf of Chalise and Poudel, first heard of the incident, his reaction was outrage.
“I’m a parent myself and I get angry,” Gould said. “How could something like that happen?” The lawyer said once the incident was confirmed, he and the family wanted to act fast so this abuse couldn’t continue. “For the sake of all the families that have children at that facility, we needed to put this lawsuit out there as quickly as possible,” Gould said.
When Poudel went to pick up Y.P. that day in June, Kiara Henry, the center’s owner and director, told him there was an incident report he needed to sign. The report said Y.P. had a behavioral episode and scratched himself. Poudel signed the report but had reservations because his son had never self-harmed before. He explained the situation to his wife, Chalise, who echoed his concerns.
No one had called the parents to let them know about the incident when it occurred, according to the lawsuit. ABA did not respond to a request for comment.
“How could something like that happen?” – Wesley Gould, attorney
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The next day, Henry reached out to Chalise to explain she had spoken to the employees involved, at which point Y.P.'s mother asked to see the video so she could know what signs to look for before the child harmed himself again. The center's owner agreed to review the video, but because there were other kids in the video she wouldn’t be able to share it. Henry also claimed one of the parents of a child caught on the video objected to it being distributed.
Something seemed off to Y.P.'s parents. It was even stranger when Henry showed up to their home at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday to explain she had Roxette Warren, one of the certified therapists at ABA, on the phone. On this occasion, Henry shared more details about the incident that the parents had yet to hear.
Henry said Y.P. was having a behavioral episode when he started hitting one of the ABA employees, Kyla Jacobs. Jacobs gently restrained Y.P., Henry said, according to the suit. From there, another employee named Ashley Morenoa entered the picture. Henry told the parents Morenoa gently picked Y.P. up by his collar and helped restrain him. She explained that at one point in the video, the two restraining Y.P. had their backs to the camera and so it didn’t capture how or when Y.P. scratched himself. Henry said she suspended Morenoa from working at the facility and that she would be allowed to provide care only via an in-home setting.
This is when the parents decided to stop sending Y.P. to ABA. It’s also around the time the parents say they caught wind of a potential cover-up at the facility.
They were contacted by another therapist at the center who told them Henry was keeping video of the incident hidden and wouldn’t allow anyone to view it. The therapist also said to not stop digging because he believed something was wrong with the whole situation. A few days later Chalise and Poudel heard from another therapist who said they had obtained the video. Upon viewing the video at the therapist's home, the parents decided what they watched did not track with what the workers at ABA said happened.
In the video, according to the lawsuit, Y.P. can be seen sitting on the floor with other children at the center. It showed Y.P. did tap Jacobs to get her attention, but not in an aggressive manner. Jacobs then took Y.P.’s hands and placed them in his lap, a method to calm him before walking away to attend to something else when the camera allegedly captured Morenoa rushing toward Y.P.
The child was sitting on the floor trying to calm himself, the suit said, but Morenoa picked Y.P. up by his collar and can be seen flailing in the video. The parents say the therapist then pushed Y.P. into a corner, stepping on another autistic child as she did it, putting her hands around his neck while Jacobs failed to intervene.
After watching the video, Chalise and Poudel took their complaint to the North Richland Hills Police Department, which is now actively investigating the incident. According to the lawsuit, it is now believed there were at least two other incidents of violence against autistic children at ABA that went unreported to authorities and misreported to the parents.
The North Richland Hills police released a statement Tuesday saying the video showed a therapist assaulting Y.P. and that “[f]urther police investigation revealed there have been several unreported complaints against this same employee.”
An arrest warrant has been obtained for the suspect, who has not been named by the police, on charges of injury to a child, a second-degree felony. The department is also working with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations regarding potential violations by ABA Interactive for failure to report child abuse. Richland Hills PD told the Observer it would not be releasing the video because of its sensitive nature and because minors are involved. We also asked the department for the name of the suspect and why it hadn't been released, but didn't get a response.
Gould the attorney has met Y.P. He says he’s a sweet child with a condition that has given him a unique setback in life.
“This family, what they were trying to do was give him every opportunity so that he could live some semblance of a normal life and interact,” Gould said. “Giving their son over to this facility, it was difficult in the first place but finding this out and the level of mistrust, flagrant wrong by this company … it has left them in a place that is much worse for wear.”
For now, the attorney said that Y.P.'s parents are asking themselves, “How do we deal with our son and his new issues of having gone through abuse? How can we trust somebody again?”
