MELBOURNE — Two health care workers have been arrested and charged with abusing an elderly dementia patient at a Melbourne care home and livestreaming the incident on Snapchat, police said Saturday.
Jada Harris, 18, and Shy’Tiona Jazziemysha Bishop, 20, both of Cocoa, were both charged with video voyeurism, abuse of an elderly person and interception/disclosure of wire or oral communications, after Brevard County sheriff’s investigators received an anonymous tip about the incidents recorded April 3, court records show.
Harris and Bishop were arrested Friday and booked into the Brevard County Jail Complex in Sharpes and each held on $4,000 bail.
Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey took to social media to describe the two women as “vile.”
“The local facility had no idea this was taking place,” Ivey said in a Facebook post Saturday. “Abusing anyone is disgusting enough, but to make matters even worse, they live streamed the abuse, they actually put it up … so that their friends could watch and laugh about it.”
At least four videos, some lasting as long as 37 seconds, were transmitted over the short-video social media platform, including some showing graphic images of the pair attempting to change the woman’s soiled clothing and sounds of the two laughing, recorded show. The unidentified woman could be heard screaming “No,” repeatedly, off-camera.
Investigators said the two were working with a patient at the Market Street Memory Care facility, 6845 Murrell Rd., Melbourne. The assisted-living facility specializes in care of patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
In one clip shared with Harris’ followers, the patient is heard saying, “Help me,” as Bishop says, “Ain’t no help…,” court records show. Harris can be seen walking toward the single bed, yanking back the sheet from the disabled woman and saying, “You’re making me mad now, let’s go,” and “Don’t touch my phone,” records show.
Investigators said Harris — listed as a nursing assistant in arrest reports — used her cellphone to record the live feeds.
The woman has been a patient at the facility since August 2022. She has been diagnosed with dementia but noted not to have any significant behavioral issues, the arrest warrant says.
The facility reported the next day that the patient was seen pacing back and forth and yelling, a sign she had been in distress, workers told investigators. Harris and Bishop were fired, the facility said.
JD Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or [email protected]. Twitter: @JDGallop