GREENWOOD, Ind. (WTHR) — UPDATE: New information tonight on a Greenwood clinic that police and prosecutors say had become a public menace.
We first told you about problems at Valle Vista Health Systems last night.
We uncovered hundreds of 9-1-1 calls to the location costing police officers time and tax payers money.
There was also a notable uptick in crime surrounding the clinic.
Greenwood police pointed to the clinic’s lack of security guards as a reason behind the problems.
Tonight we can report changes made by the clinic have resulted in significantly fewer 911 calls in recent weeks, but the clinic has yet to work with police to address the lack of security guards.
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Police, prosecutors and neighbors are sharing sharp criticism and concerns about safety at a clinic that treats people for mental illness and drug addiction in Johnson County.
Police in Greenwood say it's a problem that involves hundreds of 911 calls, a spike in crime surrounding the facility and a lack of security on the premises at Valle Vista Health System on Main Street in Greenwood.
Records obtained by Eyewitness News show it's a scenario repeated day after day at the Johnson County 911 Center: phone call after phone call from the same location, often without a real emergency at all.
More than 700 911 calls, all coming from Valle Vista Health in Greenwood, a mental health facility for people with psychiatric and addiction issues.
"I think everyone in our center is familiar with Valle Vista," said Ryan Rather, executive director of Johnson County's 911 Center. "I can't say of any other business that I know or organization that would have that many 911 calls coming into it. It's taxing the system."
"Of all the establishments, businesses in the city of Greenwood, we've never had this kind of problem," said Greenwood Assistant Police Chief Matthew Fillenwarth. "It's really an abuse of the 911 system."
Records from Greenwood Police show Valle Vista had 755 911 calls in just seven months, from January to July 2017. Nearly 600 of those were misdialed or incomplete 911 calls, not real emergencies, but still requiring an emergency response by dispatchers and police officers.
Valle Vista racked up $1,500 in fines for nuisance calls in 2016, through violations of the city's alarm code ordinance. They have another $500 in tickets from the city of Greenwood so far this year.
Greenwood Police warn what's happening is a drain on dispatchers, on police officers and is a danger to the public. They say the problem is that Valle Vista has no on-site security staff.
"We have spoken to them repeatedly about you need onsite security," Fillenwarth said. "We've had their employees tell us multiple times, 'I'm afraid to come to work.' It's not safe for patients either. The statement they gave me back was, 'We know and we know we have a problem. But we're not going to spend that kind of money, as long as we can just call the police department. We have a security issue, but we'll just rely on you guys.' They're not shy about it."
They do rely on Greenwood Police to handle potential issues at the facility. Body camera video obtained by Eyewitness News shows two Greenwood officers responding to a 911 call in July.
"I'm just kind of suspicious of their behavior and we don't have any security here, so there's really nothing that we can do," the Valle Vista employee said to dispatchers in that 911 call.
They said two men, who claimed to be suicidal addicts, became belligerent when they were told they couldn't go outside to smoke. The worker also told police in the video that the men were verbally abusive to staff members and were likely trying to get into the facility to get drugs.
Officer: "So they're just trying to get some suboxone?"
Worker: "Yeah, they were gonna sell it. They were talking about it."
Patrol officers spent nearly a half-hour at Valle Vista that night.
Assistant Chief Fillenwarth calls it a prime example of something that could have been handled by security on-site.
"We have to police an entire city, not just your facility. I think they're kind of abusing that," Fillenwarth said. "It's their bottom line. They don't want to hire onsite security because it costs money."
Valle Vista declined to comment, after multiple requests for interviews from Eyewitness News.
But police and prosecutors say there may be another problem: a lot of petty crime over the past two years right near the facility.
"When you bring in people who are highly addicted, or have mental health issues and then you don't have any way to secure those folks, they leave. They cause trouble. They cause crime. They make incomplete 911 calls and then the Greenwood Police Department is stuck with the burden of taking care of all those problems," said Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper.
Greenwood Police Crime Analyst Joseph Teske pulled crime data for two years in the city of Greenwood. Teske says the large number of crimes in the area surrounding Valle Vista cannot all be directly connected to Valle Vista. But he says the half-mile surrounding the clinic does have the highest concentration of crimes in all of Greenwood.
"Auto thefts, we're looking at burglaries. We're looking at thefts of property from vehicles, thefts of parts," Teske explained. "You would not see 22 events around another area in the city, in one month. It tells us we've got a couple different situations in that area that are going to be proponents of suspicious individuals and crime."
In the strip center next door to the clinic, the owner of Oaken Barrel Brewery was a victim of crime. Kwang Casey just bought new lighting for the parking lot after several car break-ins and after his own truck was stolen.
"It's not a good feeling finding your car window busted. They stole my truck and police recovered it two weeks later and they found drug paraphernalia and they (the thieves) were patients at the drug treatment center at Valle Vista. They'd registered there that week," Casey said.
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Police say the mental health and addiction treatment given at Valle Vista is needed and important.
But, they say, so is everyone's safety and they worry right now, that's not happening the way it should.
"The people that are running the hospital are doing it irresponsibly for their employees, their patients and our community as a whole," Fillenwarth said.
Again, Eyewitness News reached out to Valle Vista several times for this story. They declined our requests for an interview.
After our first request, they did meet with Greenwood Police about the large number of 911 calls. But both sides have different views of the results of that meeting.
Valle Vista believes they've fixed the issue. Police disagree.
Next year, the facility will house one of five new methadone clinics in Indiana, to help addicts recover. It's important to note that the methadone clinic will have security officers on-site. It is required to have security in order to be part of the state program.
But that's just one building on Valle Vista's campus. The rest of the health system will continue to operate without onsite security.