GLENDALE : SCHOOL AIDE TO STAND TRIAL
A private school aide has been ordered to stand trial on charges that he physically abused two emotionally disturbed boys in separate incidents in Glendale, including one in which a youngster briefly stopped breathing.
Alex Samson, 22. of Los Angeles, an employee of the private Tobinworld school in Glendale, was ordered held Tuesday in lieu of $45,000 bail on two counts of child abuse and one count of corporal punishment causing injury to a child.
Glendale Municipal Court Commissioner Dona Bracke set arraignment for Nov. 27 in Pasadena Superior Court.
Glendale Police arrested Samson after Derek Collins, 9, of Los Angeles, who had been misbehaving aboard a school bus Oct. 24, stopped breathing when Samson used his weight to hold the boy down against a bus bench. Derek was resuscitated and hospitalized for several days. Tests will be conducted to determine whether he suffered brain damage, police said.
The second abuse charge was filed after investigators received a report from an 11-year-old Tobinworld student alleging that Samson had disciplined him in a similar manner last May or June.
Officials at Tobinworld, which provides classes for about 100 autistic and emotionally disturbed children, have declined to comment.
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