Worker who Witnessed Livestreamed Attack Plans Suit, Lawyer says

Mesa, AZ (WorkersCompensation.com) – A worker in the building where an Arizona Department of Child Services worker was attacked last year plans to file suit, her lawyer said.

Alison Briggs, an attorney for the woman who intends on filing suit, said her client witnessed the attack and has suffered damages, including injury and anxiety, ever since.

“She’s terrified to go back to work,” said Alison Briggs, the attorney representing a woman who works in the same building as the attack in Mesa.

According to the plaintiff, she was in the lobby when the attack happened in November.

During that incident, police said De’Andre Terrell Johnson attacked an AZ DCS caseworker whom he’d met with to discuss his daughter. Johnson is accused of putting the caseworker in a chokehold and livestreaming the roughly two and a half minute assault.

Officials said Johnson was upset about a wellness check on his daughter the casework conducted earlier. However, in a video, Johnson said he was angry about the whole situation. Terrell went to the DCS office in Mesa and attacked the caseworker, streaming live on Facebook.

"You's a dead man," Johnson said on the video, according to court documents. "You still breathing?"

Two minutes into the attack, the victim went limp and witnesses in the background of the video began yelling for Johnson to let him go. In the video, Johnson turns to the witnesses and yells, “He's still breathing. I didn't make my f****** point.”

Police arrived after the assault had ended and were able to arrest Johnson a short time later.

Court records indicated that the victim’s injuries were “absolutely serious” and were very nearly fatal. The records described the victim as having bulging eyes, and that he was drooling with tensed arm muscles tensed during the attack. Officials said, the worker was taken to the hospital and later discharged.

At the time, DCS officials said there were no security personnel at the building due to cost-cutting efforts.

"The Department is committed to keeping our staff safe as they carry out this essential work, and we are conducting a comprehensive review of this incident in an effort to prevent it from happening again," DCS spokesman Darren DaRonco at the time of the attack.

Briggs said the plaintiff in the lawsuit was scared of returning to the place where the attack happened.

“She was one of the people that witnessed it, one of the people that alerted the police to it,” said Briggs. Briggs filed a claim that she intended to file a lawsuit. According to the notice, at one point, Johnson approached the witness in an aggressive manner, in an attempt to intimidate her.

“He wanted to kill that man. If they’re going to livestream, they obviously have no regard for rules for order for anything like that,” said Briggs. “So I think for my client it’s a lot of anxiety and fear and the trauma response of just seeing something like that.”

Briggs said the witness is suing the state of Arizona for thousands of dollars in damages that Briggs said would go toward treatment.

“There may not be physical injuries like there would be from a car accident where there’s medical bills of that nature. There’s trauma counseling, there’s, you know, whatever recommended treatment comes from that counseling,” she said.

Briggs said she’s not received any response from the state. She said if the victim suffered, other employees at DCS must have suffered as well.

“I’m hopeful that maybe some sort of reform can come,” she said. “If it’s having this level of an impact on other people, I cannot imagine the state of things for the workers.”

Briggs is a former DCS employee.

“My first job was actually working as a case manager at CPS (Child Protective Service) at the time and I worked in the South Mountain office,” she said.

“These are problems that span decades, … they made a new agency name, but didn’t change anything,” she explained.

Johnson was indicted in November on seven counts including one for attempted murder, one for aggravated assault, one for unlawful flight, and four counts of disorderly conduct.

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