Posted Mar 15, 2018 at 2:00 AMUpdated Mar 15, 2018 at 6:29 AM
  
You’ll not see The Record question our local courts often. But a story on our front page about an ugly attack back in March and the sentencing Wednesday begs a second look.
Understand upfront, this is no knee-jerk reaction to a semi-automatic weapon being used on a victim, in light of the Parkland shootings. The instances and their outcomes were dissimilar. It’s the similarities of the attackers in Parkland and the Sea Colony neighborhood that are concerning.
Jake Andrew Dewerth was originally facing charges of burglary with an assault or battery, aggravated battery on a security officer and two counts of possession of similitude of drivers license.
The police report by the St. Augustine Beach Police Department that night included this narrative of the incident:
“The defendant entered the ... location armed with a rifle. The victim/guard was seated inside the guard shack when the defendant entered the south side door and pointed the rifle at him and screamed for him to get to his knees. The defendant then hit him in the face with the stock of the rifle. The victim tried to exit the north side door as he was hit several times with the rifle. The victim was [then] able to exit the building and video surveillance shows ... the defendant putting the rifle to the head of the victim and appears to be trying to fire the weapon. The victim is seen falling to the ground and then trying to run away and the defendant blocks the escape and continues to swing the rifle at the victim’s head before the victim is able to flee the scene and get help. ... blood pools and blood spatter were all over the security area.”
The description is ugly, but the video surveillance is sickening.
Dewerth was found by police “with blood all over his clothing” and two fake drivers licenses on his person — in addition to his own.
On Wednesday, Dewerth was sentenced to probation, resulting from a plea agreement struck between the State Attorney’s Office and Dewerth’s attorney, Patrick Canan.
We’re not certain what Dewerth’s past criminal or mental health reports might contain — or if there were any.
But it’s difficult not to imagine a history of red flags. The guard told officers he had no idea what precipitated the beating. He did not know Dewerth, whom he says came up to the guardhouse insisting the guard tell him “What did you tell the governor?”
The security guard was taken to Flagler Hospital where he was treated for a dislocated jaw, broken nose and fractured cheekbone.
Dewerth was 19, the same age as Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz. And the similarities might end right there. But it has become clear since the Valentines Day massacre that Cruz was a troubled teen who had been ignored by the courts and coddled by a school system under a no “school-to-prison pipeline” that excused his continuing excessive and threatening behavior as a matter of policy in Broward County. And Circuit Judge Howard Maltz did mandate Dewerth’s attendance in a mental health program as part of his parole.
We have to wonder how a similar assault, committed in a poverty-prone neighborhood with a defendant of color and a public defender at his side would have fared in that same courtroom.
But either way, giving a clearly violent offender a probation pass is a double-edged sword. It’s a second chance to learn from the crime, or a second chance to get it right.