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As autistic boy died, health aide
'just froze'
Defendant, in unsealed court records, describes restraining Jonathan
Carey
October 6, 2007
By Robert Gavin
ALBANY -- Fearing prison and the
loss of his job, health aide Edwin Tirado told investigators he
"just froze" and never sought help the night an autistic boy under
his supervision died during a winter field trip, unsealed court
papers revealed Friday during his manslaughter trial. "I made a
couple of mistakes today," Tirado, 36, of Schenectady, told Colonie
police on Feb. 16.
One night earlier, Tirado and
health aide trainee Nadeem Mall, 33, left the O.D. Heck
Developmental Center in Niskayuna, planning to take 13-year-old
Jonathan Carey and a 16-year-old developmentally disabled youth to
Crossgates Mall. Instead they drove around for 90 minutes -- at one
point picking up a video game -- after the boy lay motionless.
"We were afraid of losing our jobs
and going to jail over the incident," Tirado told police, in a
statement read to jurors in Albany County Court on Friday. "That is
why we didn't call anyone for help. We should have called someone
for help."
He added, "I realized that Jonathan
had stopped breathing when he stopped moving. I didn't do anything
to help him breathe because I was scared at that moment.' "
In the statement, Tirado told
police he correctly performed a "wrap" maneuver to restrain the
child, who allegedly had become unruly, but improperly used another
technique while sitting next to the boy.
"I think that that is what made
Jonathan stop breathing," Tirado told police. "Not notifying 911 and
the supervisor was a mistake, too. I should have done that when
Jonathan had stopped moving."
The statements were read as
Assistant District Attorney David Rossi rested his case against
Tirado, who faces 5 to 15 years in prison if convicted of
manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Tirado may take the
stand in his own defense Tuesday, when the trial resumes.
His attorney, Brian Donohue, tried
to keep his client's statements to police out of the trial. During
cross-examination, he touched on Tirado working multiple 16-hour
shifts leading up to Feb. 15. Donohue also asked for a mistrial late
Friday before Rossi called his final witness, a developmental aide
at O.D. Heck who testified that the van's 16-year-old passenger
informed her on Feb. 15 that Tirado was "sitting on Jonathan's face"
and wouldn't let him breathe in the van.
Donohue, who has said the teenager
has a reputation for conjuring up stories, called the testimony
"unbelievably prejudicial." Acting Supreme Court Justice Dan Lamont
denied his attempt for a mistrial.
Earlier Friday, Rossi showed a
videotaped Feb. 16 interview with Tirado. On it, Tirado told Colonie
investigators Todd Weiss and Jay Gerace that he needed to intervene
when the Carey boy grabbed the 16-year-old by the throat, as well as
his CD player.
Tirado demonstrated how he
restrained Carey, at one point leaning on Gerace.
"I put him down this way," Tirado
said on the video. "His feet are already down on the seat . . .
right there."
"This is a little bit painful,"
Gerace tells him, before getting up.
Rossi argues Tirado "squeezed the
life" out of Carey while Mall was arguing over a bank account at a
bank branch in the Hannaford supermarket on Wolf Road.
"At that point when you knew he
wasn't breathing, why didn't you do something? Why didn't you call
911? Why didn't you do CPR? Why didn't you help him?"
"Because I just froze," Tirado
responds.
In a separate statement, Tirado
noted he wasn't supposed to be working on Feb. 15. "I work 16-hour
days for these people, but I should have just had the day off," he
said, adding, "I told the investigators incorrect statements before
because I was just scared. I didn't mean to hurt Jonathan. I was
just trying to control behavior."
Mall, who was assigned to Carey and
was supposed to stay within an arm's length of the boy, told jurors
Thursday he realized Carey fell unconscious after they left the
Hannaford to stop for beverages at a Hess gas station on Central
Avenue.
Gerace testified that Tirado
initially told police they stopped at a Hess station on Central
Avenue before the Hannaford supermarket -- and that he left out the
part where they stopped at an E.B. Games video store after the boy
fell unconscious. Earlier Friday, Mall admitted lying to police --
and that he never checked on the child after he stopped breathing.
"It was one of those things. I was
shocked, I was scared," said Mall, when asked why he didn't drive to
a hospital. "I didn't know what to do."
After Mall left the witness stand
this afternoon, Jonathan's father, Michael Carey of Glenmont,
interrupted a question-and-answer session between Tirado's attorney
and reporters outside the courtroom.
"What he is doing is disgusting,"
Carey said, fighting tears. "He knows his client's guilty. Ed Tirado
was sitting on my son and he took the life of my son."
The exchange followed a heated
court session in which Donohue grilled Mall, the prosecution's star
witness. Mall, who pleaded guilty this summer to criminally
negligent homicide and is serving six months in the Albany County
jail under a deal that required him to testify against Tirado,
admitted under cross-examination he had also been fired at a job for
the Center for Disability Services in Troy.
Mall acknowledged mixing lies with
the truth when Colonie police interviewed him. While Mall initially
told investigators he saw Tirado rubbing Carey to wake him after
they returned to O.D. Heck, "I was lying. That wasn't true," he
testified.
Robert Gavin can be reached at
434-2403 or by e-mail at
rgavin@timesunion.com.
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