Trent Lehrkamp, a 19-year-old, was beaten so badly in Glynn County, Georgia, “that he ended up hospitalized on a ventilator last week.” According to an incident report from the police department, “Lehrkamp was dropped off at the hospital last Tuesday, March 21, after hanging out with a group of teens.” Police disclosed that Lehrkamp “was spray-painted and his clothes smelled like urine.”
Lehrkamp was breathing six times a minute when he arrived at the hospital. The incident report disclosed that Lehrkamp’s blood alcohol content had reached .464, which level was described as “staggering and near-fatal.” Police later informed that Lehrkamp “was intoxicated from a mix of alcohol and controlled substances.”
A summarized recent history of Lehrkamp and this group of teens is provided. According to Lehrkamp’s father, and disclosed in the report, this incident was “not the first time this group of high school students had abused him.” As alleged by the father, “Less than a week before the incident that left him in the ICU, Lehrkamp came home covered in WD-40, vomit, paint, glue, egg yolk, and spray paint.” Additionally, “a few weeks before that, Lehrkamp’s father said he had to take his son to the hospital to get stitches on a cut above his eye, after he had been hanging out with this group of students. The father offered no insight into why his son continued to “hang out” with those students.
As claimed in the article, “A Georgia community is demanding justice for a man (Trent Lehrkamp) after he was bullied so badly.” Although the Glynn County Police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and now the FBI, have been investigating the incident, some community members have made accusations on social media that the police department was “not acting fast enough to arrest and charge the suspected assailants.
However, “Glynn County police said they are working to gather evidence and build a criminal case,” adding that “several juveniles” had been interviewed connected to the incident. Captain Michael Robinson was reported to have said “the Glynn County Police Department knows who the assailants are, and is “aggressively” working to gather all evidence so the District Attorney can build a case against them.” Robinson offered no insight into what additional evidence is needed to “build a case” and why a case has not already been built.
Robinson did boldly assert: “In our society we should all have a zero tolerance for bullying and the mistreatment of others. I encourage everyone to say something if they see something. This incident may not have been brought to our attention if Trenton didn’t end up in the hospital.” That on March 26, police said Lehrkamp was “alert and conscious” is comforting. Lehrkamp was cooperating with the investigation.