On 25th February, a 67-year-old Indian-origin nurse, Leelamma Lal, was brutally attacked by a man identified as Stephan Scantlebury at a Palm Beach County hospital in USA’s Florida. The attacker made racist remarks like “Indians are bad” and “I just beat the sh*t out of that Indian doctor”, after attacking Lal. While the victim remains hospitalised, the accused, who is reported to be a psychiatric patient, was presented before the court on Thursday (28th February), wherein he was ordered to be held without bond. The attacker will remain in jail as he awaits trial.
As per the witnesses, accused Stephan Scantlebury was in a hospital bed on the third floor when he suddenly jumped up on the bed and then jumped on Lal. The other person in the room rushed out to call for help before a second person ran in and saw Scantlebury on top of Lal, continuously beating her with his fists.
The racist attacker had escaped the hospital after brutally assaulting the Indian-origin nurse and was later arrested from Southern Boulevard. The authorities said that the attack was so brutal that essentially every bone in the victim’s face was fractured. The victim is reported to have lost vision in both eyes. She was airlifted to a trauma centre.
Reports say that the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office has added a hate crime enhancement to Scantlebury’s existing charge of attempted second-degree murder. The prosecution asked the judge to modify the accused’s second-degree murder charge to a first-degree felony based on the hate crime enhancer. The judge, however, did not grant the prosecution’s request.
The prosecution also asserted that given the accused’s ties to Canada, he could be a flight risk.
During the hearing, the accused attacker’s wife Megan Scantlebury claimed that her husband had been paranoid from days before the day he attacked the nurse adding that the accused was hallucinating and feeling like he was being watched, even accusing herself and their neighbours of being involved. She also claimed that the accused had no history of aggression but became paranoid after a car accident, WPBF reported.
From schizophrenia to acute psychosis, the defence evoked psychiatric conditions to assert that the accused attacked the Indian-origin woman due to his psychiatric condition and not due to his alleged racism against Indians. The defence made no arguments regarding his alleged racist comments after attacking the 67-year-old nurse.
The judge ruled in favour of the prosecution noting that the accused is a threat to the community comparing Stephan Scantlebury to a dynamite that could explode anytime again.
The court ordered that the accused not be granted pretrial release but instead, be held in the Palm Beach County jail without bond.
Reacting to the disturbing incident, the victim’s daughter Cindy Joseph said, “I’m obviously relieved. I was scared, and It’s caused me a lot of anxiety in general, just making sure my doors are locked at night and just really scared at night sometimes. It’s given me some relief. I don’t know a whole lot about his back story, but the fact that he’s in jail is relieving to me in a sense.”
Speaking about coming face-to-face with her mother’s attacker and testifying against him, Joseph said, “This was the first time I saw him face-to-face, and it was hard. The first time I saw his stature and the side of his face, but this was the first time I saw him, looking in the face, his actual face. I mean, it’s hard. I can’t get rid of the image of him on top of my mom just repeatedly beating her.”
The victim’s daughter said that she was pained to hear when the prosecutors detailed Scantlebury’s racist comments about her mother and Indian culture.
“I’m Indian like a lot of our family is, that was really, really hurtful. Racism has no place. It shouldn’t be a reason why you beat someone up,” Joseph said.
Meanwhile, a Health Corporation of America, Florida (HCA Florida) said that Scantlebury had driven himself to the hospital to seek treatment for an issue not related to his alleged psychiatric condition and was admitted.
