Healthcare professional pleads not guilty to choking 9-year-old with autism in his care

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Brian Schaffer, 33, pleaded "not guilty" Tuesday morning to two felony assault charges for harming a nine-year-old boy with autism in his care.

Those charges stem from an incident that took place at a Colorado Springs therapy center in August of 2021. The nine-year-old told police that Schaffer choked him for long enough that he couldn't breathe, saying he was terrified and felt like he was going to die. He also reported that Schaffer lifted him off the ground and threw him.

A police report given to KRDO by the boy's family's attorney reveals that Schaffer was not assigned to work with that boy that day and that he admitted that he had gone over the boy's care plan ahead of working with him. The report also shows that Schaffer had been working at that therapy center for a week and a half when this happened. He was fired following the allegations.

The police report details interviews with six people who said they worked with Schaffer. The first coworker told police that Schaffer had violated the facility's policies, doing things like trying to lock a child in a room by himself and working with a child he was not assigned to. She told officers she was receiving negative feedback about Schaffer's work from other colleagues and planned to speak with him about it before the incident took place.

Another coworker reported that she watched Schaffer be "rough" with kids in his care and that he didn't follow the crisis techniques that she had learned. She later wrote a report about the incident with the nine-year-old, and she told police she felt Schaffer was trying to intimidate her while she was writing the report, saying he kept asking if she needed help with it. Once she was done, she told police he asked if he could look over the report and check what she had written.

Three other coworkers spoke to the police. One told them she watched him get "very rough" with clients in the past. She said she watched him grab a child under the age of four so hard that she was concerned he might break the child's arm. She said ten separate employees had gone to management to complain about Schaffer's behavior, and Schaffer was eventually fired from that company as well. This coworker told police that Schaffer would purposely irritate clients just to "put them in a hold". This employee also told police she watched Schaffer barricade a child into a classroom and watched the child beat their head against the wall until they started bleeding.

A separate employee's account of working with Schaffer detailed that she felt he was "aggressive" and "never clinically appropriate". She said she knew of a boy who went home from their facility with bruises after working with him.

Schaffer's license to practice as a Behavior Analyst was censured in Arizona before he moved to Colorado Springs to practice after allegations surfaced of him harming a 4-year-old boy with autism. The Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners stated in an agreement that the reason they censured his license, rather than taking more serious action, is that he promised to leave the state and notify the board if he wanted to work as a behavior analyst in Arizona in the future.

Schaffer will be back in court on his two felony assault charges related to the Colorado Springs nine-year-old in early April. His jury trial is scheduled to begin in July of 2022.