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Special Needs Florida Teen Charged as Adult in Attack On Teacher’s Aide



By Janet Grace

A special needs teen, who attacked a teacher’s aid at Matanzas High School in Flagler County, Florida, shall be tried as an adult. There is a one million dollar bond on him. FYI, “Matanzas” is Spanish for the word “killings” and we wonder what went wrong.

The teacher’s aid took away the young man’s comfort blanket; in this case, a Nintendo Switch electronic game.

He can be seen running into her in the corridor, sending her sprawling and unconscious to the ground, at which point, he punches, kicks and stomps on her unconscious body, like one stomps on a fire quickly, to put it out, beating her within an inch of her life.

The hulking six foot six, 270 lb, seventeen year olds actions were captured on video. There is no argument. Others ran to her aid, to stop the attack, hopefully, saving her life.

Once he was subdued and dragged away from her by some folks, he can be seen lying calmly on the ground, being tended to, while others were hovered around the teacher a mere few feet away.

I do not know the state of that young man’s mental capacity, so, I cannot judge him. After reading the article, every single comment shared called for terrible things to befall this “monster”, “devil”, “evil” guy.

“Special Needs” runs a very wide spectrum. Not one person had one kind thing to say.

Obviously, she took away his “blanket and comfort” and he was unable to process the what or why as a normal person would have.

He could have the mental capacity or I.Q. of a three year old, despite his physical appearance. Had he been a 4 foot, 50 pound string bean, not harmed her as much as he actually did, due to his sheer ferociousness, would he still be charged as an adult? I don’t think so. He’s already being punished by the system that created him. We only see one side of the story. No disrespect is meant to either victim. It was not the teacher aid’s fault, unless she was aware of his cognitive condition and decided to take matters into her own hands, regardless.

I don’t believe that trying a young person with special needs (which could range anywhere from non verbal, severe Autism to Asperger’s, to “badly behaved” to “downright depraved”), as a person who can fully understand the extent of his or her actions, is just.

I have a special needs family member who would have done the same thing and no amount of leveling would ever have her remain calm were her tablet taken away from her. It keeps her calm. She sings quietly along to the Disney and Trolls music stemming from the device, while rocking herself, but heaven help you if you attempt to dislodge it from her hands.

Mentally, she is somewhere in the 3 to 5 year range and has to be interacted with as such, although she looks perfectly normal. Clearly, she’s not. Neither is this young man in question.
I feel that charging him as an adult, when he’s clearly not capable of thinking as a fully rational adult, is already stacking the deck against him.

I’m sending love and compassion into this situation. The highest vibrations are needed here. This is a sad situation all around. Bless this situation, these folks and their families.

He’ll be dead within the first week in gen pop unless he is friended and protected by someone that no one messes with, who sees what I see and decides to step in, in a good way.

I hope that something good comes out of this, such that, she is healed and he is evaluated and placed in a facility with employees trained at interacting with special needs people.

We shall see. I’ll be following this story and shall keep you posted.

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