Facing Frustrated Neighbors, Silver Hill Lays Out New Security Measures

Silver Hill Hospital is instituting a series of security, admissions, notification and other changes following what officials at the psychiatric facility have called “concerning incidents with patients” that have affected neighbors.

Addressing neighbors following a Feb. 28 incident where a patient at the hospital escaped custody, prompting those at nearby East School to shelter in place for a time during the school day, Silver Hill President and Medical Director Dr. Andrew Gerber said he’s committing “to be open and transparent about these incidents and to explain to you how we are changing policy and procedures.”

“We will be adding substantial security measures to prevent these incidents or anything like them from happening again,” Gerber said during an information session held March 26 at the Congregational Church of New Canaan. 

He continued: “Silver Hill is fortunate to be in a beautiful residential neighborhood. For 94 years, we have had the privilege of taking care of patients and families while respecting our neighborhood and supporting our community. We deeply regret jeopardizing your trust and that of our neighbors because of these incidents, and we’ll do whatever it takes to earn that back so we can continue in our mission and be good neighbors.”

After providing an overview of the hospital and speaking specifically about the patient who recently escaped custody—and, according to a CT Insider article, later was caught at JFK with a “hatchet, sledgehammer” and plans to shoot two people (more on that individual’s case below)—Gerber laid out a series of “significant changes in our policies and procedures.”

“These changes will prevent a patient with a similar history from being at the hospital, as well as minimize the risk that any inpatient would be able to get away from staff in this way,” he said.

Gerber reviewed additional incidents in recent years: a man who came to Silver Hill in May 2024 but decided not to stay and, after leaving alone in an Uber, left that vehicle about a half-mile away and entered a neighbor’s home; one month ago, when a patient rang a neighbor’s doorbell asking to use the phone; and a residential patient who went for a walk and wandered onto a neighbor’s property in Wilton.

“Taken as a whole, these incidents indicate that we have to do better,” Gerber said. “Our obligation as members of the New Canaan and Wilton residential areas is to help you, our neighbors, feel as safe as you would as if the hospital were not here at all. These incidents are a wake-up call that we are heeding by making important changes. My hope is to show you that this is not just talk, but real change that is already happening. It will continue with accountability and communication as we work to make the area safer.  The changes I will now talk about came back from a security review that we did two weeks ago with the New Canaan Police Department and feedback that we have already received from many of you, they fall into five areas.”

The changes are as follows, with comments from Gerber:

• Increase in 24/7 security staff (from 11 to 15 security staff members, immediately after the Feb. 28 incident) — ”This change was made permanent on March 5th at the suggestion of the New Canaan Police Department. This means that at least three officers are outside on our campus at all times, either patrolling or guarding entrances and exits to campus. A security officer is now at the main entrance 24/7, monitoring traffic and foot activity for both the east and west side of our campus, near Valley Road. This officer will also monitor the perimeter camera cameras that I’ll talk about in a little bit once those are installed. On March 12th, we did a complete review of campus security with the New Canaan Police Department and identified other steps that we will talk about shortly. We will do further security consultations with the appropriate experts as needed, and share those recommendations and new action items with you as we have them.”
• Changes in hospital policies and procedures — ”We have reviewed all related hospital policies and procedures and have identified four that required immediate change. Those changes have already been approved and are now in effect. First, we have significantly strengthened our admissions assessment procedure to definitively identify and exclude any patient who has a known history of aggressive, maladaptive or dangerous behaviors that cannot be safely managed and presents risk to the Silver Hill patients, staff, or members of the surrounding communities. While our previous admissions policy already had language to that effect, and it has been very rare that a patient with such a history be admitted, we have now strengthened it to decrease the chance that any such patient would ever be admitted. In short, under this new policy, we will not admit a patient who has violent criminal charges pending. Number two, we have changed our policies so that any patient who requires a heightened level of observation is only allowed off the unit for urgent medical needs. Number three, we have strengthened our policies and procedures in how we search patients. And number four, our previous policy allowed a patient who does not meet criteria for an involuntary commitment to leave the hospital in a car by himself, as happened in that incident I mentioned. Under the new policy which was implemented after that incident, we ensure that any patient who leaves has a plan that keeps them from endangering any neighbor, whether that means having them leave with a responsible other party, being driven by our staff to a safe location or working with the New Canaan Police Department to identify another suitable plan.”
• Neighborhood notification system — ”Silver Hill commits going forward to maintaining a neighborhood notification system that allows us to immediately broadcast a message to all neighbors who would like to be part of the system, a text message, voice message, or email. The new system has been operational for two and a half weeks now. We’ve been adding new registrants every day. Hopefully most of you if any of you want to be in it, you’re already in it. As people use our online web form or email us with the information, we already have about 300 households in that system and we have postcards tonight with information for anybody who has not yet joined. We will send out reminders at least once a year to you and all our neighbors about the notification system and do tests as appropriate. Our commitment is to get notifications out within minutes if anything happens that might affect you.”
• Physical security barriers — ”we have commissioned our neighbor, Keith Simpson, who has done beautiful work all over New Canaan and Wilton, to design fencing at all boundaries between our property and neighbor’s property. The fencing will not be visible from Valley Road. We have already had discussion with some of our neighbors on the Wilton side, which is the east side of our campus. And just today I reached out to neighbors on the west side of campus and we’ll be organizing a meeting to discuss some of the options around that fencing as well. We’ll talk a little bit more about that later. The goal is to make this fencing attractive and unnoticeable while at the same time, secure and non-climbable. We have begun to explore what permissions are required by the towns of New Canaan and Wilton to allow this fencing and are expediting all phases of this project. No expense will be spared to get this fencing to be attractive, secure and installed as soon as possible. We will be working, as I mentioned, with our direct neighbors in the towns on this, and we’ll keep the community posted about the timeline. In addition to the barriers off Valley Road, we have begun work with an architect to design what we’re calling a welcome house or small guard structure at the entrance to the west side of our campus, so that it has total visibility of the entrance on the east side of campus and all along the stone walls on Valley Road—basically anywhere there wouldn’t be fencing. This structure would be staffed 24/7 by security, who will monitor and control all exits and entrance to the campus. This person will also be able to immediately identify any patient who tries to leave the campus along Valley Road.”
• Electronic surveillance — ”We are purchasing 17 additional video cameras to add to the 81 one existing external video cameras to ensure visibility of the entire perimeter of the campus. This will include visuals of the new fencing surrounding the campus as well as both ends of Valley Road. With new camera and video technology, these cameras will automatically alert staff if any patient attempts to leave the campus. These cameras will also be monitored 24/7. We are working to identify devices to be carried by all residential patients that will show where they are at all times. The system will automatically alert if patients attempt to leave the campus or take off the device. Their locations will be monitored by our 24/7 residential and security staff, allowing an immediate response if they were to attempt to leave.”

 

Regarding the most recent incident, Gerber said that a young man in the hospital’s locked inpatient unit “ran away from staff while he was being transported.”

“He immediately got into a car and left the area,” Gerber said (hospital staff later clarified that he’d snuck a cellphone into the unit and phoned for a car). “Staff right away called the police, who responded immediately. I want to take this opportunity to thank the New Canaan Police Department for their phenomenal support. Because we did not initially see that the patient had gotten into the car, the focus was on searching the immediate area while we were reviewing the video. As soon as the video confirmed that he had gotten into a car, the search broadened, and he was located in New York City. At no point was he in the surrounding area, nor did he acquire any weapons while he was in New Canaan. This is the same man who in March 2023, came onto our campus, broke windows in the admissions building and poured gasoline on the ground. I deeply regret that we made the decision to allow him to return to the hospital.”

Those in attendance spoke candidly and put questions to Gerber and other Silver Hill staff members, including Executive Director of Quality and Experience Molly Norton and Director of Facilities, Safety and Security Kevin Havee.

The neighbors asked whether the hospital runs safety audits (yes and Silver Hill is committing to running more), whether inpatients will be kept indoors at all times (there’s a courtyard with high fences that they’ll be allowed to use), whether staff members are allowed to restrain patients (safely, yes, while on campus; off-campus it’s a police matter), what information will be shared through the alert system (everything that neighbors need to make informed safety-related decisions), what are the maximum number of inpatients (42 total beds, including 10 for adolescents—same as since the mid-1980s) and what level of confidence Gerber has that the new actions will be successful (100% certainty that Silver Hill will do right by the neighbors and community).

One man in attendance called for Silver Hill Hospital to sign an agreement that it would “shut down” the facility if patient-related incidents continued. A few neighbors used expletives to underscore their frustrations. 

Brie Young identified herself as a neighbor and mom who has been directly affected by Silver Hill patients leaving campus, and who was left in the dark by hospital officials during the most recent incident. Young also called for the town of New Canaan to do more, saying there should be more enforcement.

“I live down on Valley Road,” she said, adding in reference to the most recent escapee: “So if he made it to my yard and started doing something to me, what the heck? This is ridiculous. I’m sorry. This is ridiculous. Again, all of these enhanced security measures, they’re great, but a psychiatric lockdown unit in my backyard, in all of our backyard and the town says, ‘We can’t do anything’? That’s [expletive] ridiculous.”

First Selectman Dionna Carlson, who was in attendance along with Police Chief John DiFederico, Deputy Chief Andrew Walsh and others, in response to Young referred to the Silvermine River Neighborhood Association—a group that formed following a long-running legal battle involving the psychiatric facility. The neighbor group and hospital hammered out an agreement about 10 years ago. Carlson said that “ if there are ramifications that a reconstituted Silvermine River Neighborhood Association would like to put in place in coordination with Silver Hill, that is what I would encourage you to do.”

“That agreement was put in place by a private group in coordination with Silver Hill after they lost the last lawsuit,” Carlson said.

She noted that Silver Hill is “in compliance with the permit that they were given by the town, way before me.”

“So there’s no violation of a [zoning] permit that they’ve been issued,” she said.

Told that the town should alter the agreement, Carlson said, “I cannot do that. There’s a legal system in place for how you get a permit to operate it. It would be capricious to pull someone’s permit. I can’t, if they’re not out of compliance with a permit that they’ve been issued. Until they’re out of compliance with a town permit, I can’t do that …That is why you have this Silvermine River Neighborhood Association.”

Yet some in attendance pushed back on the idea that the neighbors themselves should be prompted to do anything other than expect and demand the problems to stop.

One longtime Silvermine resident, Andrew Glazer, said, “We’re not looking for a partner. We’re not interested in a partner. People just want to live their lives without fear.  t’s not our job to monitor. It’s not our job to get data. It’s not our job to do any of this. It’s your job. You’re being paid for it. So the idea that ‘We’re all in this together,’ with all due respect, kind of bullshit. Not our job.”

Gerber responded evenly to each attendee, repeating that the hospital is eager to be a good neighbor and earn back trust.

Asked what the new safety measures will accomplish, Gerber said, “That’s a hard question, because there are some things I can say 100% sure. I can say 100% sure we are not admitting any patient who has a criminal history. And that’s easy. That’s a 100% kind of an answer. As people have pointed out, some things are hard to know 100%. We could know 99.9%, but could a patient who’s really fast sort of get by somebody? We have to have so many steps in place that if they get past the first, there’s somebody behind that and there’s somebody behind that and somebody behind that. So what we’ve designed is a system that has so many checks and balances, that the chance of getting through all of them is minimal. But can I give you an actual number on that? I can’t. I think the audit idea is a good one. Because I think sometimes it’s helpful to have somebody with safety expertise outside the hospital take a look and review and do it in a transparent way.”

Founded in 1931 in New Canaan, Silver Hill Hospital is one of the first treatment facilities in the nation. It was “intentionally located in a residential area because of the belief that being in a beautiful setting and community is good for our patients and destigmatizes mental illness and addiction for all,” Gerber said.

He continued: “We offer three distinct levels of care at the hospital. Our inpatient unit helps stabilize individuals with acute symptoms from psychiatric illness and addiction in a safe, locked environment. We treat approximately 30 adults or adolescents at a time, and their average length of stay is 10 to 12 days. Separate from that, our residential facility cares for 50 to 60 adults or adolescents at a time with an average length of stay of four to five weeks. Third, and finally, we are treating about 70 to 80 outpatients at any given time. Altogether, we treat approximately 3,000 patients per year among all of our services.”