9-Year-Old's Family Sues After Autistic Son Injured on School Bus

Eddie Farah

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It's tough to argue with the picture of the bruises.

The parents of a 9-year old boy who is autistic and blind say that attendants on a First Student school bus abused their child and left marks on him. They are suing the bus attendants and First Student Inc. charging negligence and battery.

"There has been an outrageous sequence of events," said the family's attorney, Eric Block.

The incident allegedly happened in January. Attorney Block says the attendant who pinched and hit the boy has been fired following an investigation.

"If that is not outrageous enough, in March, it happened all over again. The boy came home and his parents found bruising on his body. The point is, this is way wrong. It's outrageous. It should not happen once, much less twice," Block said.

Block says besides the bruises the boy has suffered emotionally. And in the March incident a second bus attendant was also to blame for the injuries.

Unlike other instances of abuse on a school bus caught on videotape like the beating of 12-year old Simone Small in Duval County who was represented by the law firm of Farah and Farah, there was no videotape available here.

That seems like quite a coincidence.

So far the school has been cooperating and the parents do not have a problem with school authorities.

What remains to be determined is what kind of special training do attendants have to deal with children with special challenges.

First Student had nothing to say because of the pending litigation.