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Family of Autistic Boy Seeks $20 M For Abuse On School Bus

The lawyer for a Bedford County father has filed a $20 million lawsuit against a number of parties, including a former school bus driver and former driver’s aide. Thomas Kilpatrick, 47, is accusing the two women of physically abusing his 12-year-old autistic son on his way to the Laurel Regional Special Education Center, a special needs school in Lynchburg. Lawyers for the family say that boy is still suffering from permanent emotional damage more than two years later. Their most compelling evidence is an hour and a half worth of surveillance video from the school bus. They say it captures the autistic boy being hit, kicked and even choked by the former school employees. P. Brent Brown is an attorney for the Kilpatrick family. “When people look at the surveillance video they will be horrified,” said Kilpatrick from his Roanoke office. The suit alleges 12-year-old Timothy was strapped into a shoulder harness the morning of September 24, 2009 when the former aide hit him repeatedly with fly swatter, kicked him, and later sprayed an aerosol chemical in his face.
The lawsuit claims on his ride home, the bus driver put on a glove, choked Timothy and left bruises around his neck. Brown says what happened to Timothy could have happened to anybody.
“What we have here is a disabled child, sweet child, that is being systematically struck and abused over a long period of time,” said Brown. A spokesman for Bedford County schools says
the bus driver, Alice David Holland, and her assistant, Mary Alice Evans, were no longer employed by the school system within six days of the video being shot. But attorneys for the boy’s family say his father notified school officials of possible abuse nearly a year earlier
when Timothy came off the bus with marks on his face. Now, they want the Bedford County school system, the bus driver and aide, and the county’s director of special services to pay.
“The message that we will be asking the jury to send is that children count. That accountability counts. That vulnerable children need to be protected,” said Brown.
The Richmond Times Dispatch reports that both the former bus driver and her aide were convicted of misdemeanor assault charges in this case. Neither they nor an attorney for Bedford
County Schools was available for comment.

An elderly Broward County bus driver was slapped by an irate bus rider, who accused him of hitting her with the bus doors after she said she didn’t have any money.

The unidentified woman had just got on the county bus as it approached a stop at Andrews Avenue and Oakland Park Boulevard when she decided to unleash her fury on the unsuspecting bus operator.

The woman had just told Tassos Kostopoulos, 72, that she didn’t have enough money for the bus fare. he said she would have to get off. It costs $1.75 for a one-way trip.

As Kostopoulos opened the bus doors to let riders on and off, one of the doors accidentally hit the broke bus rider, who then went berserk.

After accusing the driver of purposely hitting her, she went on a profanity-laced assault as the packed bus watched in shock.

Then the woman utters the words no bus driver wants to hear.

“You are lucky that I am not being violent right now. You are so lucky,” the woman screamed.

That usually means that violence is imminent. Kostopoulos tried to warn the woman that her actions were being recorded on camera, but that didn’t seem to help. The woman looked directly into the camera and pointed at it several times.

And moments later, the woman slapped Kostopoulos across the face, knocking the stunned driver’s sunglasses to the floor.

The woman is described as black and in her early 20s, about 5’9” tall, thin, has long, wavy, black hair and was wearing a white shirt and jeans.

Police said she faces aggravated assault charges for being so slap happy.

Dramatic CCTV footage from inside a bus has been released of the moment the vehicle collided with a lorry in Turkey.

The passenger bus skidded after the initial collision and then smashed into a structure on the side of the road.

Images from the onboard camera also showed the bus driver picking himself up and staggering off the vehicle.

Eighteen people were injured in the incident. They were treated in nearby hospitals.

Roadside accidents are a frequent occurrence in Turkey, leaving thousands of people killed or injured every year due to poor road conditions or careless driving.