N.L., a 16-year-old Matanzas High School student, faces a felony charge of battery against a law enforcement officer after landing what appears to be an inadvertent punch on a school resource deputy attempting to break up a fight between N.L. and another student.
The incident took place around 2:50 p.m., dismissal time, on Wednesday in the lower 5 stairwell of the high school. John Landi, the deputy, saw the fight and intervened two separate the two boys, who continued fighting as Landi ordered them to stop. He positioned himself between the two boys.
“At that time,” Landi reported in N.L.’s arrest affidavit, “N.L. drew his right hand back and struck me on the left side of my face. I performed a controlled takedown on N.L. and was able to secure him in handcuffs.” As Landi took N.L. to his office, N.L. told him he “should not have gotten in the way,” according to the affidavit. (In 2011, a similar situation at Matanzas High School–a fight between two students–resulted in an identical charge against one of the students when he more intentionally head-butted the since retired SRD, Don Apperson, trying to break-up the fight. Apperson was injured, as was a school employee.)
Landi was not injured, but N.L. sustained some injuries for a laceration above the left eye, for which he was treated by a Flagler County Fire Rescue crew before being taken to AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway for further clearance before getting booked at the Flagler County jail. “This injury was caused by a strike and not being taken to the ground,” Landi reported.
Landi contacted N.L.’s mother, who filed a charge against the boy with whom her son was fighting. N.L. was released to his parents after processing through the Department of Juvenile Justice. Inadvertence is not a defense, though it might lessen the sentence: Typically, that sort of case will go before a judge and the student will face a probationary term, particularly if he does not have a history of offenses, and likely reassignment to StepUp, the district’s alternative school, for about 12 weeks.
“I commend our School Resource Deputies for their swift action getting this fight under control before it had a chance to escalate further,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in a release. “Thankfully, Deputy Landi did not sustain any injury from the strike to his face.” Superintendent LaShakia Moore said in the same release: “Our SRDs play an integral role in helping us maintain secure learning environments.”
