A Maricopa County grand jury has indicted a man accused of nearly killing a child safety worker while livestreaming the attack on Facebook.
Court documents show that 32-year-old De’Andre Terrell Johnson of Scottsdale met with an Arizona Department of Child Safety employee on Nov. 5 in the lobby of an agency building near Alma School Road and Southern Avenue in Mesa, where they met his daughter discussed. .
Court documents show Johnson put the handler in a chokehold and livestreamed the attack, which lasted about two and a half minutes, from his phone on Facebook.
“You’re a dead man,” Johnson was heard saying, later adding, “Are you still breathing?” according to court documents.
The video showed the social worker quickly staring at the phone as Johnson brought it to the ground, the documents said. The attack ended before police arrived after receiving multiple calls about an attack, according to court documents.
Pictured on November 7, 2024 is a high-rise located at South Alma School Road and West Southern Avenue in Mesa. De’Andre Terrell Johnson, 32, of Scottsdale, is accused of assaulting an Arizona Department of Child Safety employee on Nov. 5, 2024, in the building’s lobby.
Charging documents describe the practitioner as having bulging eyes, drooling and flexing his arm muscles during the attack. The employee was taken to a hospital and later released.
A doctor told police that the practitioner’s injuries were “absolutely serious, he almost died,” according to the documents.
Police arrested Johnson within hours in Scottsdale after he led police on a chase following an attempted traffic stop by Mesa detectives, documents show. He is being held in the Maricopa County Jail on a $500,000 bond.
On November 14, a grand jury indicted Johnson on the following charges:
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One count of attempted first-degree murder, a class 2 felony.
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One count of aggravated assault, a class 4 misdemeanor.
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One count of unlawful flight from a law enforcement vehicle, a class 5 felony.
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Four counts of disorderly conduct, a class 1 misdemeanor.
A trial is scheduled for March 20, 2025, but that date is subject to change.
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Dad became upset after private DCS interview with daughter
Johnson’s anger toward the child welfare agency seemed to manifest itself when his 9-year-old daughter told him she didn’t want to go to school anymore after a DCS worker interviewed her in a private room.
Johnson posted a video of himself entering his daughter’s school on Oct. 31 and asking school staff what happened.
When school staff said they could not explain the DCS employee’s actions, Johnson called police.
In a conversation with an officer, Johnson asked, “How would you feel if someone took your daughter into a room, while a man took your daughter into a room?”
The officer told him to contact DCS directly for more information about the interview.
Johnson said he would understand a welfare check if his daughter had obvious signs of injury, such as bruising, and that no parent would criticize those actions in those circumstances, and ended the video.
In a short video posted a few days before the attack, Johnson expressed his anger and shouted that he was upset about the whole situation.
When he finally posted the video of the attack, he wrote: “I found the man.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Grand jury indicts man accused of assaulting child safety worker
