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A 5-year-old Philadelphia boy
who died after allegedly being tortured during homework lessons lost his life,
in part, because he could not pronounce the word “sad,” Philly.com reports.
Dashawn Harris was punched or suffered a belt-lashing by his mother’s boyfriend, Christian Patrick, for every mistake he made during his Nov. 30 home-schooling session.
Dashawn Harris was punched or suffered a belt-lashing by his mother’s boyfriend, Christian Patrick, for every mistake he made during his Nov. 30 home-schooling session.
The punishment
reportedly lasted for hours and left the boy crying and bleeding. The mother, Lashay
Patterson, did nothing to stop it.
The problem, according to Patrick, was that
Dashawn did not seem interested in the lesson, according to a preliminary
hearing describing the final hours of the boy’s life.
“When he got the ‘a’ part, I told him to tell me the last part of
sad, because I wanted him to say it correctly,” Patrick reportedly told police.
“I told him if he didn’t tell me the letter that made the ‘d’ sound, he was
going to get another beating. So he said the letter ‘w,’ and I told him he was
wrong, and he just started saying every letter except the ‘d’ sound, so I beat
him again.”
The beating eventually lead
to Dashawn’s death.
As NewsOne previously
reported, the boy’s other family members suspected that Dashawn had been abused
prior to his death. They boy was never allowed play outside with other
neighborhood children. Tracy Merriweather, the boys’ paternal aunt and
Patterson’s next-door neighbor, said when she asked Patterson about suspicious
bruises on her son’s body, the mother stop letting her see the boy and his
younger brother.
The Wednesday’s preliminary
hearing confirmed Merriweather’s worst fears. Perhaps the most disturbing
detail heard at the hearing was the lack of regard the mother and her boyfriend
showed over the boy’s condition when it was clear that he was mortally injured.
Philly.com has more:
Patrick and Patterson put the boy’s sluggish body
in the shower, stripping him of his Batman underwear and splashing water in his
face. They tried the hair drier, then put him to bed.
Patrick said he had suggested that they take
Dashawn to the hospital earlier, but that the child’s mother had refused,
saying, “We would both get in trouble.”
In her statement to police, read to the court by
Detective Howard Peterman, Patterson said she had heard and seen Patrick
beating Dashawn during the lesson, but it “didn’t sound like he was breaking
any bones or nothing like that.”
She told police she and Patrick had regularly beat
Dashawn since he began his kindergarten home-schooling.
“I’d say since he started school, he’d get beat
maybe twice a week and the other days he’d just have to stand in the corner,”
she told police.
Detectives are still looking at the details of
Dashawn’s home-schooling, said Lt. Philip Riehl, who is leading the
investigation.
A medical examiner testified Dashawn died from
“multiple blunt impact” and said he couldn’t count all the bruises.
As the details of Dashawn’s death were read,
Patrick stared at Patterson. She did not look back, at times rubbing her eyes
but displaying little emotion.
Many in the crowded courtroom were moved to tears,
including a sheriff’s deputy and some of Dashawn’s relatives, who did not want
to speak after the hearing.
The judge presiding over the
hearing held Patterson and Patrick for trial on a charge of first-degree
murder.
¶
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But whoso shall
offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and [that] he were drowned in
the depth of the sea.
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Therefore now thus
saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel; Wherefore commit ye
[this] great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman,
child and suckling, out of Judah, to leave you none to remain;
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Cursed [shalt] thou
[be] when thou comest in, and cursed [shalt] thou [be] when thou goest out.
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