The squalid end of an elderly, mentally retarded man has forced the Fenty administration into another round of promised reforms of city services. But the administration has refused to bow to public calls for an outside investigation of the man’s awful last days.

The 65-year-old, identified only as “Mr. Johnson” in a watchdog agency’s report, slipped into a diabetic coma in a cockroach-and-feces infested apartment in D.C. on Feb. 23.