A teacher that seems to have gone off the deep end

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I remember my Sophomore year of high school (10th grade) I took Spanish and I was doing horribly and I had this teacher who was particularly strict and I could tell I really wasn't her favorite student. If I'm being honest I really wasn't trying but it was difficult with a teacher who wasn't really the best with helping. When I got something wrong she'd yell at me. She had talked to my guidance counselor and wanted me to drop the course but I stayed out of spite. I didn't like being told what to do or that I was basically an idiot. She really did make me feel like an idiot. She wasn't always mean to me but she didn't have any patience. She ended up leaving in the middle of the year because she was diagnosed with MS and had to go through so much treatment and we were being taught by several subs who didn't know Spanish but had pre recorded lessons via our teacher. Finally about a month or so later we got a new teacher and he was nice and willing to work one on one with me and help me. He is the reason I actually did end up passing that class. I didn't take a second year because while I passed the class with a C- you needed a C+ to take the second year and I was going to a vocational school the following year. He was the reason I didn't fail that class. He was super lenient and just a nice guy. Now, I hear he is a world class jerk and super strict. He is also bizarre and sort of off the walls from my understanding. My niece was telling me about him and all I could think was "wow what did you guys do to him?" He was not like that when I was there. I have seen all of the reports on him lately and I'm sort of mind blown. What the heck happened between when I had him to now? How on earth did he go from the kind man who was willing to help me to being the guy that spouts off things about the police that aren't true and has gotten in trouble for being unfair to students? Is it possible he can be both the person he was to me and the crazy guy and he just had a soft spot for a few students who were struggling? I know a few teachers who really liked me because I was well behaved and polite. I was the kid who sat at the back of the room and didn't talk when I didn't have to. I didn't really find myself until towards the end of high school. I gained more confidence in my abilities and pulled it together. Sophomore year was my worst year academically because I was just trying to figure it all out and was uninterested in everything. I saw the guidance counselor a lot and finally I'd had enough and just wanted to leave the school. I was being bullied off and on by some people who claimed to be my friends but turned their backs on me because they thought it was cool to fit in with someone who hated me. It was a tough year. I was so glad to leave there and go to my vocational school where I thrived. I still graduated from that high school but all of my classes were at the vocational school. I still participated in assemblys at my old high school and went to the dances there but I rarely at that school and that was fine by me. That being said though, that crazy Spanish teacher was always friendly to me and made my year a little more tolerable and it's sad to think he went off the deep end. I now wonder if I saw him in a way others didn't or if this is a recent development? I am not sure anymore.