Maine Bus Driver Charged With Assaulting Autistic Student
NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine (AP) — A Maine school district has fired a bus driver caught on surveillance video smacking a teenager who has autism.
Melissa Seavey tells WMTW-TV that she's thankful that an aide reported the assault on her 19-year-old son. Surveillance video captured the driver hitting her son on the head. The Gray school superintendent promptly fired the driver.
Seavey said her son likes to spin things as a coping mechanism, and that driver was apparently angered when he didn't heed his warning to buckle up.
The driver faces a charge of assault and is due in court next month.
Seavey says the driver violated his job of protecting her son. She said the potential sentence of a year in jail is a "slap on the wrist."