Disturbing footage of the vicious attack on a Las Vegas high school teacher by her student who was convicted of choking and sexually assaulting her has been released nearly two years after the shocking incident.
Seventeen-year-old Jonathan Martinez Garcia is currently serving a minimum of 16 years of a 40-year prison sentence after being found guilty of the April 2022 assault on his former Eldorado High School teacher, the New York Post reported in June 2023.
Surveillance video from the attack recently obtained by 8 News Now shows the harrowing events that changed the life of that teacher, only identified as Sade, forever.
A disturbing video has just been released showing a Las Vegas high school student ambushing his teacher.
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) December 11, 2023
Jonathan Garzia-Martinez (17) was found guilty of strangling and s*xually assaulting his teacher. The judge sentenced Jonathan to serve a minimum of 16 years of a 40-year… pic.twitter.com/SbFhNWGBjW
The video shows Garcia, then 16, wandering the halls and unsuccessfully attempting to open a classroom door at 1:33 p.m. on April 7, 2022, before starting to walk away.
Sade could then be seen popping her head out of the room, and the teen quickly turned around and approached her.
The footage, obtained by the outlet via a public records request, then shows Garcia struggling with the teacher, dragging her into the classroom.
The video jumps to 3:05 p.m., nearly an hour and a half after the assault began, showing the teen leaving the classroom with his head down.
Sade recounted the horrifying details of the attack during Garcia’s June sentencing hearing as he mercilessly smirked in the courtroom.
“I would wake up in a new spot and position each time knowing that he’d just dragged my limp, and near lifeless body to a different part of the classroom to do whatever he so chose to do with my body, as I lay unconscious,” the traumatized teacher said, adding that Garcia had beaten her so badly “that I could no longer fight.”
After the brutal beating, Garcia then choked her until she passed out. When she regained consciousness, her pants and underwear were pulled down and he was pouring a liquid on her, the Post reported.
Sade told investigators that the teen threatened to “set something on fire” before tipping a heavy bookshelf on top of her, sitting on top of it while attempting to slash her wrists.
“I was being crushed to near death,” she explained.
“Since it happened, there hasn’t been a single night I haven’t dreamt of the attack,” the educator shared with the court.
When speaking with police, Sade said Garcia told her that he “didn’t like teachers” and was “getting revenge” when she pleaded to know why he had targeted her.
“Sade remembers him saying, ‘Why won’t you just die?’” Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney William Rowles said during the hearing.
The teen managed to escape the scene but was caught later that day when a Clark County School District Police officer hunted him down, finding him sitting outside of his home in a vehicle.
Garcia exited the car wearing a different outfit — his ROTC uniform.
He was calmly taken into custody but answered “no” when the cop asked if he knew why he was there.
The teen claimed to investigators that he “blacked out” during the attack, but he later told police that he remembered raping and trying to strangle Sade.
The high schooler pleaded guilty to attempted murder, battery with the use of a deadly weapon resulting in substantial bodily harm, and attempted sexual assault.
“I regret what I’ve done,” Garcia told the court during his sentencing. “I also regret the things I should have done, but didn’t do.”
His public defender argued that the student’s asthma medication, Singulair, caused severe mood swings and delusions.
“He had no history of anything but being a perfect, loving kid,” attorney Tyler Gaston argued.
However, Judge Kathleen Delaney handed down a sentence of 40 years, saying it is “the most heinous type of crime there could be.”
