ROSCOMMON — A Northern Michigan bus attendant is charged in connection with grabbing and hitting an eight year old student, who has severe non-verbal autism.
The Roscommon County Prosecutor’s Office said the man was arrested this past Saturday, but bonded out and has yet to be arraigned.
The man, whose name has not yet been released, is facing child abuse in the fourth degree and assault and battery charges for the incident.
The student’s mother, Jasmine Springberg said it happened on a C.O.O.R. ISD bus operated by Dean Transportation. The student attends special education classes in the district.
Jasmine Springberg said that Friday was back in October of last year. The following Monday, Dean Transportation called her to tell her what happened and said the bus attendant was suspended.
She said she went to the school and watched the video and was appalled by what she saw.
“My son was grabbed by his coat and shoved into his bus seat and hit twice by his bus attendant. That was on a Friday. He hits him, like, either in the chest or in, like, the face area, but it’s kind of covered by the seat, so you can’t tell exactly where the contact was made,” Springberg said.
She said it’s made her fearful of what happens when she’s not around.
“When he goes to school, I’m thinking they’re trained,” she said. “I feel like I shouldn’t have had to have that worry. And up until this happened, I didn’t have that worry.”
Springberg said it was reported by a parent who was on the bus when the abuse happened or she may have never known. The bus driver did not report it.
“It has created a lot of fears in me every time my son comes home,” she said. “Now, if he comes home in a bad mood, I’m like, what if something happened at school. My son cannot talk, sometimes he’ll repeat one word...it’s only one word at a time. Like there’s no conversations coming out. There was no way of him being able to let me know.”
The superintendent of the C.O.O.R. Intermediate School District, Shawn Petri, said they looked into it as soon as they heard about it and the bus attendant no longer works for the district.
“Anytime that a kid may be disrupted or hurt in any way, we always take that extremely seriously because education is about a good experience and safe experience,” Petri said.
He said they contacted law enforcement, Dean Transportation, and CPS.
“As an ISD, we did our internal investigation with Dean, and we also made sure the authorities were alerted and they did their own investigation, which resulted in basically taking the case to the county prosecutor,” Petri said.
Dean Transportation declined our request for an interview but they did send a statement that read in part that they are aware of the incident and have been fully cooperating with law enforcement and C.O.O.R. ISD.
They also said all employees working with school districts are required to pass a background check and be fingerprinted.
Springberg said she’s happy he’s finally been arrested but bothered it took a while for it to happen.
“It’s a very clear video. You can even see his expression. So I don’t understand why it’s taken three months, but I am very happy that something is finally being done,” Springberg said.
9&10 News did reach out to the prosecutor for comment on the length of time it took to make an arrest but did not receive a response.