A judge said the student, now 18, showed no remorse for the beating. His mother said he has mental health conditions and needs help.
A Florida student accused of beating a school employee unconscious after she confiscated his Nintendo Switch last year was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday, court records show.
Brendan Depa, 18, pleaded no contest to one count of aggravated battery on an elected official or education employee, according to sentencing documents from the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court in Flagler County.
Depa, who was 17 at the time of the assault, was also sentenced to 15 years of probation.
His parents failed him. His mom is trying to get him into a hospital or rehabilitation setting. Why now? This can’t be the first sign of aggression. Prison is gonna ruin this kid.
Did you read the article?
He was already a special needs student with an apparently individualized education program. This doesn’t sound like a “Why now?” Situation. It sounds a bit like there may be more going on, especially since the school district declined to answer when questioned about it.
You may be right that it’s probably not the first sign of aggression but he’s also autistic with other issues. Do you know how expensive it is to get help, how our healthcare/insurance system preys on people to take their money rather than help them, and the likelihood of this family maybe not being able to help more than they already were?
I feel sorry for the person that he hurt, but this is a mentally ill black kid getting tossed in prison because of a mental illness. Which is going to ruin him just like you said.
The judge saying he showed no remorse is bs used to paint this kid in the worst light. Well no fucking shit he showed no remorse, if he’s got a bunch of mental problems that would make sense. I knew a kid growing up that was similar, he was extremely strong and even the slightest thing could set him on a rampage. His parents drained everything they had into helping him, but it wasn’t enough. When the insurance stops paying what are you going to do?
I’m not saying that nothing should be done but there’s more to this than “parents failed the kid with mental disabilities”.
On top of that, an autism diagnosis rarely gets you any support that isn’t Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy. That’s essentially dog training for your autist (designed by the same B. F. Skinner of “Skinner box” fame using the same principals), and people who have been through it have described it as torture. The ADA doesn’t make many accommodations for folks with non-physical disabilities, and cops have no idea how to interact with folks with communication barriers and an inability to control their bodily movements. It’s tough being autistic in public. It’s tough trying to navigate our society as a parent of autistic people. With or without insurance, it’s hard. The problems are not purely financial.
I recommend some books on the subject, particularly Neurotribes by Steve Silberman and Unmasking Autism by Dr. Devon Price.
We live in a country where we can’t have women provided with maternity leave or universal health care.
I doubt many people really care if the shit stain goes to prison for an violence. In fact prison literally ment to put these people away which this piece of shit deserves. Mental disability or not.
And we will all be worse off when he gets out in 5 years with ptsd from being in one of the world’s most dangerous and violent prison systems. And ppl with your dumbass thinking is why the homeless and prison populations are made up of the mentally ill
How is this any different with any other violent felon, my dearest stable genious?
Do you undersyamd that we live in the country where we don’t provide any resources to people who have a chance to make it out? Why should society prioritizr needs of a violent piece of shit over people who work for money?
Why should society waste 100k per year on this trash? Do educate us stable genius! So maybe we have 10% better chance he won’t re offend?
Clown prioriyy lead to a circus society lol
Prison is for violent criminals inherently.
I’m guessing cost and availability of care is a significant barrier. If you’re a working class family, you might struggle to find qualified care that is actually capable of working with your special needs child’s needs. Where maybe a retired family member can care for a more nuerotypical child, they may not be capable of adjusting to a special needs child’s needs. Or if they’re attending a commercial daycare, the daycare may simply be ill equiped and one bad day from saying “nope not worth it, we won’t watch your kid anymore”
Many developmental disorders see significant improvement with early intervention with good care, but getting intervention this early can be prohibitively expensive (in my personal recent experience, $60 per appointment twice or more a week with decent insurance), especially before a diagnosis is achieved
Once the kids get older, especially if they’re at a point where they continue to need individualized care they can simply be violent and unaware of the consequences for themselves and others. Unfortunately this is where the only support structures that exist in many cases are charities and prisons.
In my own experiences, I’m looking at moving closer to good care for my special needs child. Fortunately there are strong state programs and variants of Medicaid that I can lean on for financial assistance with everything a special needs child throws at us, being near good care could be lifechanging for him. But also, I’m lucky to be in the financial position where moving is actually an option. I have good enough insurance that we could persue diagnosis. I have good enough income and insurance to weather the very expensive care until Medicaid could kick in, and I have the flexibility to take off of work when needed to take him to care, and I just barely make enough that my wife doesn’t have to work, so she can provide individualized care until he’s old enough to attend school, as well as ferry him to his twice weekly appointments
I’m normally not one to champion extreme prison sentences, but 5 years really doesn’t seem like enough in this case. I remember seeing the video, and it’s clear that the kid has some major issues that aren’t going to be solved by a few years of prison time. He kept attacking her after it was clear she was already unconscious; whether it’s over a video game or not, that is not healthy behavior. Most people know, even in high-stress self defense situations, that once somebody is unconscious, you don’t keep attacking them. He had no issue attacking somebody he knew was completely defenseless. That’s sociopathic behavior.
Most people don’t come out as better people because prison does nothing to actually rehabilitate people, but I can’t imagine this doesn’t make him even worse. He needs to be hospitalized, otherwise in 5 years we’ll probably see his name in the news again.
it’s clear that the kid has some major issues that aren’t going to be solved by a few years of prison time
Correct. Imprisonment of a 17yo with mental health issues is guaranteed to make things worse. He needs psychiatric treatment and behavioral therapy, not caging, to become able to properly function in civilized society.
Prison life will only reinforce his violent impulses, making SURE that he’s fucked up for life.
I can’t imagine this doesn’t make him even worse. He needs to be hospitalized, otherwise in 5 years we’ll probably see his name in the news again.
Agreed.
How is this different from any violent criminal?
Zero pity for somebody beating a teacher who can’t fight back. At some point we gonna need to start dealing with this issue because whatever is going on right clearly is not working.
Why would anyone want to be a teacher in this clown ass society where the perp gets more sympathy then the public servant who was brutally beat and nobody did anything about it.
Y’all are fucking disgusting.
How is this different from any violent criminal?
He has mental issues. Is it that you didn’t read or that you didn’t care?
Zero pity
Right. Guess that answers that 🤦
At some point we gonna need to start dealing with this issue because whatever is going on right clearly is not working.
And what is going on right now is prison making the mental health and therefore behavior of offenders with mental issues MUCH WORSE.
Even if you have no empathy with someone who isn’t able to function properly acting out horribly, from a purely practical perspective of “let’s do something to prevent this kind of thing from happening again”, therapy is infinitely more effective than prison at that
where the perp gets more sympathy then the public servant who was brutally beat
Sympathy isn’t the point.
You said yourself that whatever is going on right now clearly isn’t working.
What is going on right now is that there’s only very few and expensive resources available to make sure that nothing like this horrific attack can happen.
Then when it DOES happen, they try to fix it by forcing the perpetrator into an extremely violent environment rife with abuse from fellow inmates and guards alike.
Then when that torture doesn’t help anyone, juvenile offenders become lifers and everyone gives up on them just like they do with the majority of adults who are imprisoned.
We have higher priority people for whom we can’t get any help… ie most homeless people are not visible and helping them would cost a lot less money per head.
No can’t do that… now you are suggesting state waste resources on this trash?
Y’all need to get some context and priorities straight. I don’t disagree with having a proper social policy but we don’t have that right now. So this clown goes to prison where they will beat him until he is unconscious and nobody will care.
Pity ended when violence started. Also I reviewed transcripts… this piece of shit really should have been taken out of school system earlier. The disregard for teacher safety in public education is beyond clown status. That’s the real issue here, not this trash being send to prison.
He said he wanted to kill her, should have been charged with attempted murder.
“wOrDs HavE MeAnInG”
most homeless people are not visible and helping them would cost a lot less money per head.
Ignoring your fascist-sounding “higher priority people” for now, it’s not an either/or proposition.
The unhoused should DEFINITELY receive more and better assistance as well.
suggesting state waste resources on this trash?
Ok, you’re sounding more and more bigoted by the sentence, I’m starting to reconsider engaging in the first place…
this piece of shit
Yup, that’s about the amount of quite likely racially motivated dehumanizing I’m gonna put up with. Go fuck yourself.
yes we should waste resources because your opinion is that violent criminal is higher priority than working people who can’t afford rent lol
again we got the clown society we deserve with reasoning like this.
cheers.
I’d say prison and thearpy would be better. Those hospitals they send people to are in a lot of cases worse than prison because the people there have even less rights and there is even less oversight.
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lol if this is the slave state I support it
At least there will be a switch 2 when they get out
Graduated to crime school
