A US school bus aide has been arrested by police for allegedly physically abusing three children with severe autism. According to Fox News, Colorado's paraprofessional Kiarra Jones, 29, was employed by Littleton Public Schools. She was arrested last week after a disturbing video of her inflicting physical harm on a 10-year-old nonverbal autistic boy was made public. She faces felony assault charges for crimes against at-risk children, according to the police.
The clip, recorded on March 18, captures Kiarra Jones assaulting the young boy, including elbow strikes to his stomach, slaps across his face and foot stomps. The 10-year-old's parents made the disturbing footage public on Tuesday to highlight the severity of the situation. "Had bus footage been routinely audited, the torture and torment of my sweet boy could have been stopped," Jessica Vestal, the mother of the 10-year-old boy, told Fox News.
According to a police affidavit, the alleged assaults happened in February and March. Ms Vestal said that her son, who can not speak, first came home from school with bruises all over his body in January. Other injuries followed, including a black eye in February, which she said a bus aide blamed on him hitting himself with a toy, and a bruised foot in March.
It wasn't until Ms Vestal asked to review the bus surveillance video last month that she learned that Jones was abusing her son. She released the clip on Tuesday, following which the 29-year-old was arrested. She was arraigned on the morning of April 5 and bonded out on a $5,000 bond, police said.
She was fired the same day she was arrested, ABC News reported. "This kind of behavior cannot be and is not tolerated," Todd Lambert, the district's superintendent, said in a letter to the school community Friday. "As parents, you trust us with the well-being of your children and you should never have to worry about them being harmed when they are in our care," he added.
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Separately, the Englewood Police Department said, "It was determined that more than one non-verbal autistic student was assaulted by the suspect on a moving school bus while en route to school". "It was also determined that the suspect was the victims' assigned paraprofessional employed by Littleton Public School District at the time of the incident," the cops added.
Now, the family of three Colorado special needs children are considering a lawsuit against the school district. The three students endured "extreme physical and mental abuse" over the course of six months while on a Littleton Public Schools special needs bus, a law firm representing the families said. All three children are non-verbal, and could therefore not report the abuse, it added.
