{"id":56471,"date":"2025-11-30T18:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T18:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/56471\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T18:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T18:40:08","slug":"worker-chokes-special-needs-student-at-ny-school-for-kids-on-autism-spectrum-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/56471\/","title":{"rendered":"Worker chokes special needs student at NY school for kids on autism spectrum: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A 33-year-old worker at a suburban school for special needs kids was fired after being busted for allegedly choking a disabled student at the Westchester County campus.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Merceu was charged Friday with criminal obstruction of breathing for allegedly attacking the youngster at the Shrub Oak International School in Yorktown last month, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lohud.com\/story\/news\/crime\/2025\/11\/26\/shrub-oak-school-employee-charged-with-obstructing-students-breathing-yorktown-ny\/87481594007\/?gnt-cfr=1&amp;gca-cat=p&amp;gca-uir=true&amp;gca-epti=z113415p003050c003050d00----v113415b0037xxd003765&amp;gca-ft=166&amp;gca-ds=sophi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lohud.com reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Yorktown police were called to the school, which educates children on the autism spectrum, shortly after 5:20 p.m. on Oct. 26, on reports that the student had been attacked by a staffer.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"37803566\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/shrub-oak-international-school-116448990.jpg\" alt=\"Shrub Oak International School building with a prominent tower and green trees.\" class=\"wp-image-37803566\"  \/>Jonathan Merceu was charged Friday with criminal obstruction of breathing for allegedly attacking the youngster at the Shrub Oak International School, per a report. Google Maps<\/p>\n<p>Cops determined that Merceu allegedly sought to \u201cinjure the student\u2019s physical, mental and moral welfare,\u201d according to the outlet.<\/p>\n<p>He turned himself in to police on Thursday, and was also charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person, a felony, and is due back in court Dec. 4.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/westchester.news12.com\/school-employee-accused-of-obstructing-disabled-students-breathing-in-yorktown\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News12 Westchester<\/a>, the school fired Merceus following his arrest.<\/p>\n<p>Yorktown police did not immediately provide information on the arrest on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 33-year-old worker at a suburban school for special needs kids was fired after being busted for allegedly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14836,2882,57,9,11,10,104,58,1628,5267],"class_list":{"0":"post-56471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-autism","9":"tag-child-endangerment","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-police","15":"tag-us-news","16":"tag-westchester-county","17":"tag-yorktown-heights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}