Jada Ari’ana Harris and Shy’Tiona J. Bishop (Brevard County Sheriff’s Office)
Two female health care workers in Florida have been arrested after they allegedly taped themselves abusing an elderly dementia patient and livestreamed the footage on Snapchat. Jada Ari’ana Harris and Shy’Tiona J. Bishop were taken into custody last week and charged with one count each of video voyeurism and abuse and neglect of an elderly person or disabled adult, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Harris, 18, was also charged with one count of interception or disclosure of wired communications.
“They actually put it up on a livestreamed platform so that their friends could watch it, laugh about it, as they mocked this elderly person in her condition,” Sheriff Wayne Ivey said in a video posted to the office’s Facebook page.
According to a sworn affidavit of probable cause, Harris and Bishop on April 3 were caring for a patient at Market Street Memory Care in Melbourne, located about 55 miles southeast of Orlando. At approximately 9:46 p.m., Harris positioned her cellphone on the bathroom sink so it would record her and Bishop caring for the victim and livestream on her Snapchat account under the username “Pr3ttyassjadaa,” police say.
The live feed was captured by an anonymous citizen and turned over to police in four separate videos.
The first video allegedly shows Harris holding an adult diaper and Bishop holding a blanket while the victim can be heard screaming “No.”
“Harris states ‘this is so embarrassing’ and requests that Bishop ‘get the live.’ Bishop grabs the cellphone and states ‘everyone is laughing’ and focuses the camera towards Harris and [the victim],” the affidavit states. [The victim] using both of her hands grabs on to Harris’ right arm and is constantly yelling, while Harris tries to get loose from her grip. In the background you can hear Bishop laughing at the incident.”
Jada Ari’ana Harris (Brevard County Sheriff’s Office)
In the second clip, taken about a minute later, Harris allegedly picks up the cellphone and says, “This is so embarrassing, I’m sorry y’all, she embarrassing,” in reference to the victim, who can still be heard yelling at the two health care workers. As the victim walks out of the bathroom, she calls one of the workers a “son of a b—-,” police wrote. Harris then allegedly laughs and says to the camera, “There she goes…look at her f—— peeing.”
In the third video, Harris and Bishop are allegedly locked in the victim’s private bathroom addressing the livestream as the victim bangs on the door. Harris allegedly states that she goes through this “every night,” and refers to the victim as a “psycho or something.”
The cellphone is set up in the victim’s private bedroom for the fourth and final video clip, per the affidavit. At the start of the video, the victim can be heard saying “help me.” Bishop allegedly responds by saying, “Ain’t no help for you.” She then walks towards the victim’s bed, removes the sheets, and says to the victim, “You making me mad now. Let’s go.”
The victim then attempts to grab Harris’ phone, but Harris pulls the device away and reads aloud several comments from people viewing the livestream, including one person suggesting that the health care workers “lock her in the closet.” The two workers then record themselves putting an adult diaper on the victim.
In an interview with investigators, the director of the facility said that the day after the livestream, staff reported that the victim was not acting like herself, police say. The victim was allegedly pacing back and forth while repeatedly screaming “son of a bitch” throughout the day. Police said that during the interview, the director was “crying thinking about how distressed [the victim] was in the video and the day after.”
“The only good news, in this case, is that the victim is now safe and sound with true professional health care workers that are with her and her family taking care of her,” Sheriff Ivey said during the news conference in which he referred to Bishop and Harris as “disgusting” and “vile individuals.”
“I’ve asked our team to make sure they work closely with the state attorney’s office and the judicial system to make sure that these two can never be involved in any type of health care again in their lives,” Ivey continued. “I’ll be honest with you, I wouldn’t let them care for a pet cobra because he might accidentally bite ‘em and he would die of scumbag poisoning.”
Harris and Bishop were released from jail on April 8 after posting bonds of $6,000 and $4,000, respectively. They are scheduled to appear in court next month.
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