A man seen in a video that he recorded himself as he was beating an elderly U.S. Army veteran has had his charges dropped, according to a Thursday report.
The alarming May 15, 2020, video shows Jaden Hayden repeatedly punching 75-yea-old resident Norman Bledsoe who was a resident of the Westwood Nursing Center. Bledsoe would die some weeks later following the vicious pummeling.
Charges were reportedly dropped because Hayden is mentally incompetent to stand trial.
“He shouldn’t be in jail,” Hayden’s father, Marty Hayden, told WXYZ, Detroit’s ABC television affiliate. “So the system will let him down again. He will not be rehabilitated.”
WARNING: Graphic Violence
This is a nursing home. Please someone explain why this is happening and unreported. pic.twitter.com/Dzs8QYykIv
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) May 21, 2020
The Daily Wire added:
Hayden recorded the beating with his own cell phone, according to police. The video shows Bledsoe covered in blood as he lies helpless on the bed and being pummeled by Hayden, who repeatedly yells, “Get the f*** off my bed!”
Nursing home staff raced in to help Bledsoe, Hayden said had fallen out of his bed, police later said. Hayden was arrested a week later, after police received several calls from citizens who saw the video on social media. Hayden, who police said had “set up his cell phone” in the room, had posted videos of the attack on social media. He was also accused of stealing Bledsoe’s credit cards.
Joely Pointer an employee at the nursing home, said in January, 2021, that Bledsoe was left dazed after the attack, which left him with several broken ribs, fingers, and a broken jaw.
“He had a very large contusion to his head,” she said. “There was blood. He was very confused and he could not give me a statement as to what happened. Other than he probably said that he fell. But he did not elaborate as to what actually happened to him.”
Hayden was arrested a week after the incident, reports added.
Hayden’s father blamed social workers for putting his mentally ill son in the nursing home despite his history of violent behavior. He had been living in a group home in May 2020 when he told his dad he was “hearing voices.”
At that, he was sent to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, where he was diagnosed with COVID-19. Inexplicably, he was sent to the nursing home to recover.
“He came to the facility because of COVID. They opened a COVID unit so that’s how Mr. Bledsoe was introduced into the nursing home,” said Pointer while explaining why the two were placed in the same room together.
“Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, like former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and governors in New Jersey and Pennsylvania sent COVID patients to nursing homes during the early stages of the pandemic. The policy has been blamed for deadly infections of elderly people in those states,” The Daily Wire noted further.
Hayden is now confined in a Kalamazoo psychiatric hospital.
The Bledsoe family is suing the nursing home and has hired prominent Michigan attorney Jeffrey Fieger.
