SAN ANTONIO – Mark Curtis was unloading equipment from his vehicle May 17 when a man he did not know approached him from behind and assaulted him.
Surveillance video obtained by KSAT Investigates shows Curtis and the man scuffling in Curtis’ garage before the man takes off.
“Mark’s coming back, he says ‘call the police, call the police,’” the victim’s wife, Yvonne Curtis, told KSAT, adding that the man also picked up a large flat rock and hurled it toward her parked car.
“Luckily it just hit the tire so it bounced off,” Yvonne Curtis said.
San Antonio police records obtained by KSAT Investigates show officers were already in the Woods of Shavano neighborhood, three houses away, investigating allegations that the same man shattered the windshield of a vehicle belonging to one of his caregivers.
The now 20-year-old man, who KSAT is not identifying, also told officers he wanted to harm another caregiver at the group home where he was residing, an SAPD incident report states.
Officers emergency detained the man and took him to a behavioral hospital, but did not criminally charge him.
Police records confirm the man has an intellectual disability.
The May incident was one of several this spring and summer in which he was accused of assaulting neighbors or damaging their property, only to avoid criminal charges and instead be emergency detained, records show.
In early April, officers were dispatched to the group home for an assault in progress. At the scene, officers were told the man had grabbed his 76-year-old grandmother/guardian and a second person inside the group home, SAPD records show.
The man was emergency detained but was not criminally charged, according to records.
In early May, a 911 caller said the same man grabbed their arm and that they were “worried of the subjects strength,” SAPD records show.
Officers determined “the subject to be experiencing a mental health episode,” leading to him being emergency detained and not charged.
In late June, after officers were called to the neighborhood to investigate accusations that the same man broke the windows of an elderly neighbor’s home and scratched a second elderly person he did not know, he was charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief and booked into the Bexar County Jail.
Bexar County Sheriff Office officials confirm the man was originally approved for a PR bond, which would have allowed him to be released without posting bond.
“The judge was then made aware that (redacted) does not have a place to live upon release and therefore the PR bond was withdrawn,” a BCSO spokeswoman confirmed last month.
The man, who was housed in the jail’s mental health unit for much of his stay, was finally released into the care of his grandmother/guardian on July 16, three weeks after he was first taken into custody.
‘If we keep people locked away in isolation it could make it worse’
The man’s grandmother/guardian spoke at length with KSAT while her grandson was in jail, and confirmed he will not return to the group home, where he had resided since late February.
She told KSAT he will instead try to get placement in a state supported living center.
After speaking with KSAT in person, the man’s grandmother contacted KSAT via text message and said she did not want information she had provided about her grandson used in this story.
Advocates for people living with disabilities said despite neighbors’ calls for the man to be removed from the home, state and federal statutes protect living arrangements for people living with disabilities.
“Sometimes if they don’t like the place they live they maybe act up and they don’t know how to share their thoughts on what’s going on in their mind,” said James Meadours, an advocate for people with intellectual disabilities.
Meadours has no involvement in the Woods of Shavano incidents.
Meadours, who himself has an intellectual disability, was part of a group years ago that convinced Texas leaders to use more inclusive language when referring to people with intellectual disabilities.
Meadours is employed and pointed out that he has now lived on his own for more than three decades.
“We want to be in the community instead of shut away or locked away. If we keep people locked away in isolation it could make it worse and be harmful for his confidence and his self esteem,” Meadours said.
A staff member at the Woods of Shavano group home declined to speak with KSAT earlier this summer and after calling her manager was instructed to ask the news crew to leave the property.
Officials with Caregiver Daybreak, the company contracted with Texas Health and Human Services to operate the residence, did not respond to repeated emails from KSAT seeking comment for this story.
After a family member of the elderly woman whose front windows were damaged in June requested that the man be removed from the home, Daybreak’s compliance director told him via email the company is not permitted by law to refuse home and community-based services to anyone who has chosen them as a provider, records obtained by KSAT show.
The director, who cited both the Texas Administrative Code and the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, wrote that the company must service individuals who have chosen them as a provider on a zero-reject basis.
Daybreak’s contract with HHSC to operate in Bexar County runs until April 2027, state records show.
KSAT could find no citations for violating standards of care at the Northwest Side property.
SAPD records show that prior to the man’s four-month stay at the Woods of Shavano group home, he had been accused of assaulting his grandmother/guardian inside her house at least three times.
After police charged him with injury to the elderly in March of last year, a Bexar County assistant district attorney rejected the case, SAPD records show.
The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to repeated emails from KSAT about the status of the June criminal mischief case, and it’s unclear if prosecutors plan to pursue the criminal charge.
Texas Health and Human Services operates 13 state supported living centers, but only one of them is located in San Antonio.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.