A Massachusetts assisted-living facility where a fire killed 10 people earlier this month temporarily lost its certification nearly a decade ago due to resident mistreatment, according to state regulators.
The documents obtained by The Associated Press show the staff failed to treat residents with “consideration, respect, personal dignity and privacy." Other specific details of what prompted the monthlong suspension were redacted in documents the state Executive Office of Aging & Independence provided Tuesday. The facility in Fall River was barred from accepting new residents until it took corrective action.
The report adds to a list of issues raised with the Gabriel House facility over the years. A resident filed a lawsuit recently alleging the facility was not properly managed, staffed or maintained and that “emergency response procedures were not put in place.” The son of another resident said an elevator had been out for as long as nine months at one point.
The state’s deadliest blaze in more than four decades has highlighted the lack of regulations governing assisted-living facilities that often care for low-income or disabled residents. Gov. Maura Healey declined last week to weigh in on the efficacy of state and local inspections. Instead, Healey has touted that a state commission is currently working on recommendations to improve assisted-living facilities.
State records released Tuesday include about two dozen complaints about the facility during the last decade, including several related to “abuse, neglect or financial exploitation" but details are redacted. Other complaints involved a resident getting stuck for hours in an elevator that was then out of service for months, and staff members who threatened residents and withheld medication.
There also were complaints about a nurse withholding medication, “environmental safety” and a cook: “The cook is obsessive, controlling and abusive.”
The most detailed complaint is from 2015 and appears to have been written or dictated by a resident. It lists more than a dozen issues, including bed bugs, roaches over-medicated residents and fist fights in common areas.
“It is a place where you can’t feel safe due to other patients and corrupt staff,” the complaint states. “The staff treat the people there very cruel and show no respect for them or their needs.”
Dennis Etzkorn, the owner of Gabriel House, has said he will not speak to journalists and is focused on helping families of the victims and cooperating with the investigation into the fire.
Most recently, documents show that state officials were alarmed about the ongoing elevator issues as of spring 2025. A field supervisor with Massachusetts’s long-term care ombudsman made a plea in February to the state to investigate Gabriel House’s faulty elevator, saying that every time he made a call about the problem he was met with “excuses.”
“Please call this place and see if this is true … if so we need a remedy /plan asap,” an unnamed official wrote to the office’s assisted living certification specialist.
Etzkorn later wrote to the office detailing the timeline of the elevator problems that said work would begin in March after it was first alerted in September 2024.
Before the July 13 fire, the most recent compliance review found numerous repeat violations, many related to record keeping. After the facility submitted a corrective plan, the state renewed its certification in December 2023.
Investigators said last week that the fire started unintentionally by either someone smoking or an electrical issue with an oxygen machine. The blaze left some residents of the three-story building hanging out of windows and screaming for help.
Associated Press Writer Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.
A handwritten sign is propped outside the Gabriel House on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, more than a week after a deadly fire at that assisted-living facility in Fall River, Mass. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)
FILE - Boards cover the windows of the Gabriel House assisted living facility, July 15, 2025 in Fall River, Mass. (AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi, file)
A handwritten sign is propped outside the Gabriel House on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, more than a week after a deadly fire at that assisted-living facility in Fall River, Mass. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Liberian man who has been shuttled in and out of custody since immigration agents in Minnesota broke down his door with a battering ram was released again Friday, hours after a routine check-in with authorities led to his second arrest.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, backed off a bit from his threat a day earlier to invoke an 1807 law, the Insurrection Act, to send troops to suppress protests in Minnesota during an unprecedented immigration sweep in the Twin Cities.
“I don’t think there’s any reason right now to use it, but if I needed it, I’d use it," Trump told reporters outside the White House.
The dramatic initial arrest of Garrison Gibson last weekend was captured on video. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan ruled the arrest unlawful Thursday and freed him, but Gibson was detained again Friday when he appeared at an immigration office.
A few hours later, Gibson was free again, attorney Marc Prokosch said.
“In the words of my client, he said that somebody at ICE said they bleeped up and so they re-released him this afternoon and so he’s out of custody,” Prokosch said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Gibson’s arrest is one of more than 2,500 made during a weekslong immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and St. Paul, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The operation has intensified and become more confrontational since the fatal shooting of Renee Good on Jan. 7.
Gibson, 37, who fled the civil war in his West African home country as a child, had been ordered removed from the U.S., apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed. He has remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision, Prokosch said, and complied with the requirement that he meet regularly with immigration authorities. =
In his Thursday order, the judge agreed that officials violated regulations by not giving Gibson enough notice that his supervision status had been revoked. Prokosch said he was told by ICE that they are “now going through their proper channels" to revoke the order.
Meanwhile, tribal leaders and Native American rights organizations are advising anyone with a tribal ID to carry it with them when out in public in case they are approached by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Native Americans across the U.S. have reported being stopped or detained by ICE, and tribal leaders are asking members to report these contacts.
Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma and chair of the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma, called the reports “deeply concerning”.
Organizers in Minneapolis have set up application booths in the city to assist people needing a tribal ID.
Democratic members of Congress held a local meeting Friday to hear from people who say they've had aggressive encounters with immigration agents. St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, who is Hmong American, said people are walking around with their passports in case they are challenged, and she has received reports of ICE agents going from door to door “asking where the Asian people live.” Thousands of Hmong people, largely from the Southeast Asian nation of Laos, have settled in the United States since the 1970s.
Minneapolis authorities released police and fire dispatch logs and transcripts of 911 calls, all related to the fatal shooting of Good. Firefighters found what appeared to be two gunshot wounds in her right chest, one in her left forearm and a possible gunshot wound on the left side of her head, records show.
“They shot her, like, cause she wouldn’t open her car door,” a caller said. “Point blank range in her car.”
Good, 37, was at the wheel of her Honda Pilot, which was partially blocking a street. Video showed an officer approached the SUV, demanded that she open the door and grabbed the handle.
Good began to pull forward and turned the vehicle's wheel to the right. Another ICE officer, Jonathan Ross, pulled his gun and fired at close range, jumping back as the SUV moved past him. DHS claims the agent shot Good in self-defense.
FBI Director Kash Patel said at least one person has been arrested for stealing property from an FBI vehicle in Minneapolis. The SUV was among government vehicles whose windows were broken Wednesday evening. Attorney General Pam Bondi said body armor and weapons were stolen.
The destruction occurred when agents were responding to a shooting during an immigration arrest. Trump subsequently said on social media that he would invoke the Insurrection Act if Minnesota officials don’t stop the “professional agitators and insurrectionists” there.
Minnesota’s attorney general responded by saying he would sue if the president acts.
Associated Press reporters Ed White and Corey Williams in Detroit; Graham Lee Brewer in Oklahoma City; Jesse Bedayn in Denver; Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu; and Ben Finley in Washington contributed.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, including one wearing a 'NOT ICE' face covering, walk near their vehicles, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Richfield, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
A person looks out of their vehicle as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents walk away, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Richfield, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
