Iowa Bus Driver Arrested For Assaulting Special Needs Teen On Bus [Video]
An Iowa school bus driver is behind bars after cell phone video surfaced that appears to show him striking a teenager with special needs, KCCI (Des Moines) is reporting.
Sixty-year-old Robert Scarborough was driving a packed school bus full of kids home from a half day of school on Thursday afternoon in the Des Moines suburb of Johnston, Iowa. At about 12:22 p.m., a 15-year-old student with special needs, identified only by his first name, Christian, began having a behavioral episode. Police say he refused to comply with the bus driver’s instructions regarding a seating assignment. The bus driver stopped the bus and approached Christian, who made an “inflammatory” remark toward Scarborough.
Multiple students on the bus pulled out their cell phone cameras and recorded what happened next. In the video posted below, you can see the bus driver pulling Christian up by his coat and striking the special needs boy in the head, as terrified children scream “Stop!” and “You can’t do that!” He then points at a protesting student and tells him to “shut up” and sit down. Be warned: The video posted below is graphic and may be disturbing to some viewers.
The bus driver returned to the driver’s seat and drove the bus to the next bus stop, where a police squad car happened to be parked. Fabeiola Jamboa, who was on the bus, describes to WHO-TV (Des Moines) how the kids told the police officer about the assault.
“We just got off the bus. Maybe like five to six people stayed on the bus. We just all ran out and just yelled to [the police officer] and he [the bus driver] just said the f-word to everybody. Just cussed. He didn’t care… He just cussed at us. He didn’t care. He was soulless.”
Scarborough, of West Des Moines, was arrested at the scene and taken to the Polk County jail.
An Iowa school bus driver accused of assaulting a special needs student is behind bars: https://t.co/Ld5EcYSsYL pic.twitter.com/2ka0JxuU4m
— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 30, 2015
Gracie Foster was one of the students who recorded the bus driver striking the student. She says, via CBS News, that she and other kids on the bus were terrified.
“The bus driver threw him down on the ground and yelled at him. I was shaking and everyone was crying.”
Ady Serdarevic was seated next to Christian when the assault happened.
“He hit him in the head and he has a disability in his head so he’s supposed to be watching us, not hurting us. Christian was repeatedly saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ and everyone else was telling the bus driver to stop.”
Parent Jennifer Swindler was appalled at the incident.
“It made me sick. Because I have nieces and nephews that are special education children and I can’t imagine anybody laying a hand on those special kids.”
Christian complained of pain in his face but did not appear to have any serious injuries from the incident.
In a statement, Johnston Superintendent Dr. Corey Lunn noted that the bus driver has been placed on administrative leave.
“This afternoon we had an incident on a Johnston Middle School bus involving the bus driver and a special needs student. Other students video-recorded the interaction; in the video, it appears as though the driver made a series of poor choices regarding how to handle the student’s behavior… The driver has been placed on administrative leave with the district.”
School officials say that Scarborough passed all of his background checks and all of his bus driver classes and that there had been no complaints against him prior to Thursday.
The bus driver is currently facing charges of assault causing injury and child endangerment.
[Image via YouTube]
