Boy Held in Infant’s Beating to Get More Tests
A Juvenile Court referee on Friday ordered further psychiatric testing to determine whether a 6-year-old boy charged with assaulting a month-old infant is competent to stand trial.
The boy is accused of breaking into a Richmond apartment on April 22 and beating Ignacio Bermudez so severely that he suffered permanent brain damage. The 6-year-old first was charged with attempted murder and is believed to be the youngest person in the United States to have faced so serious a charge.
The charge was reduced to aggravated assault Thursday after the prosecutor saw a preliminary psychiatric evaluation concluding that the boy did not understand the permanence of death.
The boy’s defense attorney argued that the psychiatric evaluation shows that the boy is so psychologically disturbed he cannot stand trial.
Referee Stephen Easton ordered attorneys not to discuss the psychiatric report publicly.
Dr. Harold Schreier, a psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, prepared a 50-page report on the 6-year-old based on more than 16 hours of observation and testing. Schreier and a second psychiatrist, to be named at a court hearing Wednesday, will use Shreier’s data and additional tests to determine whether the boy understands his attorney’s advice.
The court has ordered the boy transferred from Juvenile Hall to a treatment facility, pending the outcome of the court proceedings.
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