A mother in Sumter, S.C. has filed suit against the school district claiming that due to negligence her autistic son was abused by a school bus aide. The description of what was done to her autistic son sounds like something that might have happened between two students in a fight. But it wasn’t a fight and her son is a victim. The mom says “He was grabbed around the neck and pushed into the window, pushed down to a seat, punched in his stomach.”
The mother called the police as soon as she found out. Deputies in Sumter County arrested and charged 19 year old James Porter with assault and battery on a minor. Porter was a bus aide on the school bus that the autistic boy rode.
His mother said he would come home off the school bus and be in a bad mood or be crying. The concerned mother said that due to her son’s disability it was hard for her to understand what was happening. The changes in behavior began happening in November of 2009, but she was unable to find out what was going on until March 2010 when the son of a friend who rode the bus one day told her what had occurred.
At this time James Porter is out of jail on bond and awaiting trial for assault. However the angry mother has filed a lawsuit against both Mr. Porter and the Sumter County School District Two accusing them of negligence. She said “I have to defend him; I have to fight for him because he cannot fight for himself.”
