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Worker Stabbed at Clinic; Patient Held

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Times Staff Writer

A psychiatric social worker was stabbed five times by the mental patient she was counseling in a Santa Monica board and care center Sunday morning, authorities said.

Shirley Ann Sauerwein, 44, was discussing a “minor arrest matter” with the male patient, whom she had been counseling regularly for about a year and a half, when the man locked the door, pulled out a knife and said, repeatedly, “I’m going to kill you, I’ll kill you,” she recalled from her hospital bed, where she was in satisfactory condition Sunday evening.

Santa Monica Police Sgt. Frank Fabrega, said a suspect, Larry Anthony Taylor, 27, was arrested shortly after the attack when an officer spotted him in the 1300 block of Pacific Coast Highway.

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Taylor was taken into custody without a struggle, the sergeant said, and was booked for investigation of attempted murder in the medical ward at Los Angeles County Jail, where he was being treated for a heart ailment.

Sauerwein said Taylor had been anxious over a court hearing scheduled for today and, as he was stabbing her, told her he was afraid of going to jail.

The hearing, the social worker said, was for a minor offense that she could not disclose, because of client confidentiality. She said she had told the patient that another staff member would take him to court, when he pulled a knife and threatened her life.

Relied on Training

Sauerwein said she relied on her training during the attack and reasoned with Taylor while he was stabbing her, pointing out what consequences would result from the attack.

“He kept saying ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!’ Then I said, ‘Larry if you do that, they will send you to jail,’ ” Sauerwein said. “The training is there,” she said. “You know what to do.”

She said one thing in her favor was the fact that Taylor “was not delusional. He knew right from wrong.”

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As the assailant’s attention was drawn away from the attack by workers at the facility who had been alerted by the shouting and began pounding on the door, Sauerwein said she wrestled with him and fended off several knife blows before Taylor fled.

“He was scared and extremely dependent on someone being with him in court to protect him,” Sauerwein said of Taylor. “I had told him his offense was not a serious . . . But he couldn’t get over his fear . . .

Incident Recalled

“It’s not as if we were arguing. We were talking. Then he came closer to me and first he said, ‘I’m scared, I don’t want to go to jail.’ ”

Sauerwein said she did not feel any animosity toward Taylor.

“Most psychiatric patients are not violent,” she said “Larry is a young man who is immature and in certain instances cannot practice the best judgement. He will make decisions irrationally, without thinking about the consequences.”

Sauerwein said Taylor was not a threat to anyone at the board and care facility, which specializes in psychiatric patients, and was well liked by the staff.

Sauerwein, who suffered five stab wounds to the chest and arms, was taken to Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center where she underwent surgery to inflate a collapsed lung.

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Officials described her injuries as “not life endangering.”

Sauerwein said she was in good spirits and added that doctors told her she may be released in about five days.

Sauerwein said she is employed by the county Department of Childrens Services, adoptions division.

Hired as Consultant

She said she was hired as a consultant by the owner of the independent board and care facility. She said she had arranged for Taylor to stay at the center, which she refused to identify in order to avoid any negative association by the public.

Sauerwein said she previously worked for the same county mental health center where psychiatric social worker Robbyn Panich had been employed.

Panich, 36, was stabbed to death on Feb. 21 by a mentally ill transient at the Santa Monica West Mental Health Service clinic on Euclid Avenue.

The suspect, David Scott Smith, 26, told authorities he was convinced she was the Anti-Christ.

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Sauerwein said she left the clinic a year ago, because of pending budgets cuts and the likelihood of layoffs.

Panich was hired to fill one of the positions vacated by Sauerwein and several other clinic employes.

The two had met once, for professional reasons, Sauerwein said.

She added that Taylor had not discussed the Panich attack with her and, to her knowledge, did not know of the incident.

Sauerwein said that although there had been a cutback in the number of county-funded counselors at the board and care facility, she did not believe the attack on her could be directly attributed to budget cuts.

She cited a lack of resources and access to information to check the backgrounds of patients.

“Being able to know who we are treating would help immensely in reducing the stress and risk” involved, she said.

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