By Patric Hedlund, TME

Annamarie Howell is a crisis intervention specialist at a mental health crisis unit in the Ridgecrest area.

“Basically,” she said, “I talk with people in crisis, suicidal, depression or anxiety, and help them get resources and deal with their crisis.”

Perhaps that is what gave her the quick instincts to act immediately when her 6-year-old daughter told her parents that she thought it was a little weird when her first grade teacher gave her a “neck massage” in class because, he said, her hair had gotten messed up in the wind.

That was two years ago, in 2019. Howell said she and her husband showed up in the principal’s office of their daughter’s school the next morning to discuss the new substitute teacher, Mr. David Allan Whitley.

Howell found the extensive reporting that The Mountain Enterprise had done about another teacher who had a reputation for “inappropriate touching” of small children, but his name was David Allan Deshler.

It did not take long for Howell to confirm that they are the same person, and that the teacher in her daughter’s classroom had a long string of complaints and charges against him.

That began her campaign to get the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to revoke Deshler-Whitley’s credentials to work with children.

On January 10, 2021 Deshler-Whitley’s credentials were revoked, according to CTC spokesperson Sasha Horwitz.

“At this time, Mr. Whitley’s credentials remain revoked,” Horwitz said. “He may petition the Commission for reinstatement of his credentials after one year from the revocation date, pursuant to Government Code section 11522, and subject to the legal burden of proof which requires a petitioner to affirmatively prove rehabilitation by clear and convincing evidence.”

This may be a tall hurdle for Mr. Deshler-Whitley. Howard has compiled a staggering dossier on his professional history of being released repeatedly from teaching positions in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Before changing his name to the surname of his deceased mother, he contacted The Mountain Enterprise twice to threaten legal action if we did not remove our stories about him from our website. We explained he represented a public safety concern, and refused his request.

Note To Our Readers:

To see Part Two of this story, go here.

This story has been corrected. Annamarie Howell’s name was misspelled in the original printing of this story.

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This is part of the February 12, 2021 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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