PPS student heading to trial in assault case as victim continues to need treatment

PITTSBURGH — An 18-year-old Pittsburgh Public Schools student is headed to trial on an aggravated assault charge stemming from a brutal fight caught on camera in January.

Quincey Garland had no comment following his preliminary hearing on Thursday. The judge’s decision to hold the charge for court came after viewing video of the attack, which had been caught on a surveillance camera within Brashear High School.

That clip, along with cell phone video previously obtained by Channel 11, shows Garland throwing the 17-year-old victim to the ground and repeatedly stomping on him. A substitute teacher, who testified during the hearing, is seen attempting to pull Garland away as the victim lies motionless.

The victim’s mother also testified, stating that her son requires continued mental and physical health treatment and can no longer care for himself.

The victim’s cousin, Eric Pettus, spoke with Channel 11 after the hearing, stating that the victim must be homeschooled now as he can no longer handle the “rigors of the school day.”

Pettus said his young cousin went from being a vibrant athlete to someone who now struggles to speak and slurs his words, is sensitive to light, suffers from constant headaches and nausea and is often disoriented.

The victim reportedly wakes up “in the middle of the night, screaming, running down the stairs, not knowing where he is,” Pettus said.

Meantime, Garland’s public defender argued that Garland was instead the student who had been jumped, and reacted on a “fight or flight instinct.”

Pettus, however, said that is categorically false, and that Garland had repeatedly injured his cousin.

As Channel 11 previously reported, the victim’s family says they contacted the school on multiple occasions with their concerns, and yet the district never took action. The school principal has since been placed on leave.

“Any parent that sends their kid to school automatically, inherently, believes that they’re gonna be safe when they get to school,” Pettus said. “And even in this case, we have a mother who reached out to the school on multiple occasions to ask for them to intervene and intercede with this situation, and they just failed on all levels to handle it.”

The family has now hired an attorney, who was present at court on Thursday. She told Channel 11 that a due process complaint has been filed with the state’s Office for Dispute Resolution.

According to the office, “A party must go through the due process hearing procedures first, before filing a lawsuit in state or federal court.”

Garland is set to be formally arraigned in April.

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