Posted on 08/06/2024 11:30:06 PM PDT by Morgana
The monster special needs student who pummeled his teacher after she took his Nintendo Switch has been sentenced to five years in a Florida state prison.
Brendan Depa, who was 17 at the time of the beating, tackled teacher's aide Joan Naydich, 59, in February 2023 and unleashed dozens of punches to her body and head, leaving her seriously bruised and unconscious.
Depa, who is 6'6' and 270 pounds, has become a legal adult since the brutal attack he perpetrated at Matanzas High School in Palm Coast, Florida, a moderately sized town near Daytona Beach.
He pleaded no contest to the aggravated battery charges against him October and was originally due to be sentenced in May 2024, but the judge delayed the hearing so he could hear from more witnesses.
Arguably the most crucial testimony came from Naydich herself, who told the court: 'Brendan Depa's actions that day has caused me to lose a job that I had for almost 19 years, lose my financial security, lose my health insurance.'
Naydich, a mother of two, has previously called for her teenaged attacker to be locked up for the maximum sentence of 30 years.
But the decision from Judge Terence Perkins to give Depa 25 years less than that could have do with the exculpatory testimony that came from his mother and arguments from his defense team.
Leann Depa, his adoptive mother, said she had warned the school about her son's laundry list of triggers.
According to her, 'electronics' was his biggest trigger.
'I had told the school that being hungry was a trigger, that noise was a trigger, that being told no was a trigger, that being corrected in front of other people was a trigger, and electronics was a huge trigger,' she said on the stand.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Clearly, you have had much experience in this area. As desperate as I’ve ever been for a job, I’ve always avoided this kind of work, even though the adult-care programs seem to be hiring all the time. Many people with these disabilities are sweet-natured, and they have far more to fear from the “normal” people. But, based on personal experience, I know of the difficulties in helping grown people who are forever children, so I’ve never applied for those jobs.
Of course, you make a good point that the number of beds is finite and expanded treatment would cost much more money. But, would it really cost much more if, instead of dispersing people into many different houses (group homes), each state housed them in a smaller number of larger places? Especially the people with behavioral problems. Just like group homes, people would learn to live together, do chores, and so on in these places. But, they wouldn’t have to enroll in special ed programs at a school. More importantly, their doctors would be right there on the premises and have more oversight.
I used to take a bus route that had a stop at a mental institution. The bus would wind through the leafy grounds, and although no one would want to end up there, it didn’t look like a bad place.
The links below give more information about this case.
His mother talks about his upbringing here:
https://flaglerlive.com/brendan-depa-my-son-story/#gsc.tab=0
Here’s the paraprofessional’s side of the story:
https://www.observerlocalnews.com/news/2024/may/02/everything-was-taken-away-from-me-victim-testifies-in-sentencing-hearing-for-brendan-depa/
Two other autistic students in the same school system attacked paraprofessionals, but those students weren’t sent to prison:
https://flaglerlive.com/depa-disparities/#gsc.tab=0
You learn , oh do you learn! What it requires to communicate each step of the way until it's impossible to communicate. Rage and aggression is 24/7 and state laws forbid sedating these patients. Other patients, staff and visitors get hurt often seriously - nurses often are injured....so it's no wonder turnover is very high....
Just one patient like this can grab onto the crouch of a nurse like a vise-grip, requiring 5-6 people to simply hold down the patient....and still not get the grip loose.
The physical strength of such people is beyond comprehension.
I will tell you a short story that I heard that addresses this point that I am aware of.
It took place in a Vietnamese prison camp, where they held American prisoners. One of the prisoners was a strapping 6’4 and somewhere around 270lbs of muscle. He thought he would run the camp. He started giving the guards some attitude. The next he knew he was fending off several 120lb Vietnamese guards. They eventually knocked him on the ground and dragged him away and gave him his attitude adjustment.
His mom warned the school about his triggers? Triggers? That boy needed to be punished for thinking complaining someone was mean to him allows all his behavior. How many years in prison was he sentenced to?
I’ve made myself pretty clear on this thread. Again, He is where he needs to be...locked up.
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