Mental health clinic is sued

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Thursday, Nov. 24, 2005 | 7:20 a.m.

A 28-year-old schizophrenic charged in a 2003 shooting rampage in which one man was killed and two Metro Police officers were wounded has sued a mental health clinic, claiming its employees were negligent for not refilling his medication two days before the deadly incident.

Frank Robert Lyles is charged with murder and four counts of attempted murder in connection with the death of 49-year-old Kevin Chandler and the wounding of two officers in a gun battle along Martin Luther King Boulevard near Bonanza Road.

Lyles is accused of going on a shooting spree two days after he had gone to the Nevada Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services clinic at 2121 Las Vegas Blvd. North. His lawyer at that time, James "Bucky" Buchanan, said Lyles had not been able to get the medication for his mental illness that day because he was late for his appointment.

In a lawsuit seeking more than $10,000 in damages, Lyles accuses Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services of medical negligence for failing to "adequately assess" Lyles' mental state when he showed up for a scheduled appointment "a few minutes late."

Lyles' arrest report says he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was under a doctor's care. He bought a .22-caliber handgun several days before the shooting to carry out what he called his "dream" to kill someone, the police report says.

Lyles' attorney in the civil suit, Hamilton Moore, claims employees of the clinic failed to ensure that Lyles "had sufficient psychotropic medication to last until his next scheduled appointment, and did not follow the procedures of their own protocol to ensure continuity of care for seriously ill chronic psychiatric patients."

An affidavit attached to the lawsuit by Dr. Anna Scherzer of the Scottsdale Institute for Behavioral Sciences in Arizona said the clinic's policy states that "no Division Agency client who has run out of medication will be turned away from a clinic site without enough medication to last until that client can be seen by their treating physician."

The clinic's failure, Hamilton argues, led Lyles to "commit ... crimes in his psychotic state."

Hamilton stressed that the "real tragedy is what not giving Lyles his medication did to the person who died and the police officers that were injured."

Nevada attorney general's office spokeswoman Nicole Moon said this week that the deputy attorney general representing Southern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services in the suit was not prepared to discuss the case.

On Jan. 1, 2004, Lyles was deemed incompetent to stand trial and was sent to Lake's Crossing, the state's mental facility in Sparks. Late last year the state's doctors said he had improved enough to stand trial.

Lyles' criminal case attorney, Bill Terry, has since unsuccessfully argued that Lyles' charges should be dismissed because Lyles was not permitted to stop his medication to testify before a Clark County grand jury.

Terry said he plans to file a motion with District Judge Joseph Bonaventure seeking to have Lyles taken off his medication at his Feb. 21, 2006, trial.

Matt Pordum can be reached at 474-7406 or at pordum@lasvegassun.com.