Family members of an elderly Lebanese man recently filed a lawsuit against a nursing home in the U.S. after footage revealed acts of physical and verbal abuse.
The 89-year-old man, identified as Hussein Younes, was admitted into a nursing home in Michigan following a bowel obstruction surgery in 2015.
Over time, his son began noticing bruises, cuts, and significant weight loss on his father.
"They blamed his injuries on him falling 11 times over a five-month period," said Jonathan Marko, the family's lawyer, according to Detroit News.
The man's son did not buy the reasoning. Instead, he implanted a camera in the room to document the living conditions and treatment of his father inside the nursing home.
The camera gathered "more than 100 clips documenting neglectful behavior over two days," according to Marko. Subsequently, Younes' family removed him from the facility in December 2015.
The recent lawsuit claims the "caretakers physically abused and hurled ethnic slurs at Younes." It also states that the 89-year-old man was "denied water, had his call button taken from him and had his legs run into a wall while in a wheelchair."
In the video, one of the caretakers, who was violently lifting the man from the wheelchair onto the hospital bed, can be heard saying:
"I'm sick of your stupid ass ... get your ass up in here."
The family's lawyer insists that the abuse may have been racially motivated.
"He’s an elderly Lebanese gentleman who was born and grew up in Lebanon," Marko said.
"He’s an Arab-American, and because of that, he was targeted as this nursing home and horribly abused."
The nursing home, Autumnwood, had conducted an internal investigation after learning of the complaints in December 2015 but wasn't able to prove the allegations at the time.
However, it wasn't aware of the video until May 2016. The caretakers in the video have been fired and additional training has been provided to other employees.
The civil trial begins in June.
The video is available online but StepFeed chose not to share it due to the publication's ethical guidelines.
Not the first Lebanese-American to suffer at the hands of racial discrimination
In 2016, Lebanese-American Khalid Jabara was allegedly murdered at gunpoint by his neighbor Vernon Majors, a tragic culmination of years of harassment.
Majors nearly killed Jabara's mother in a hit-and-run in 2015, shortly after calling the family "filthy Lebanese," according to The Washington Post.
Jabara took precautionary measures - by calling the police - when he learned Majors was released from jail and was now armed.
Unfortunately, the "police came and told him there was nothing to be done," Victoria Jabara Williams, his sister, wrote in a Facebook post.
Minutes later, Khalid stepped outside to get the mail when Majors opened fire, leading to Jabara's death.