AVENTURA, Fla. – A South Florida mother said she's concerned for the safety of other students after seeing cellphone video of a bus driver involved in a scuffle with her son.
The video shows a 13-year-old boy involved in a scuffle with the driver. Other students broke it up, but it wasn't over. The upset student walked down the aisle and a struggle ensued once again. Students can be heard screaming for the driver to stop, and one girl intervenes.
"He said, 'Mommy, I can't breathe. This man was trying to kill me,'" Diana Cowan said of her son, Raedrian.
Cowan said she's shocked that a school district employee would put his hands on her son.
She said Raedrian was so upset in the first place after he claimed that the driver grabbed him by the shirt to get him to move back to his assigned seat.
"The anger that I saw in the video and how he handled my son, I'm very concerned for other kids," Cowan said. "I'm concerned that this driver could hurt other children, I mean, worse than how he hurt my son."
It happened last week outside Aventura Waterways K-8 Center in Miami-Dade County.
Cowan said the school didn't seem to be taking the incident seriously. She said a vice principal even allowed Raedrian to be taken home that day by the same driver.
"If she is hearing that my son was physically abused by an adult, she should have done something to keep my son safe," Cowan said.
Cowan said her son is now getting picked up from school.
"I feel like they are supposed to keep my son safe," she said.
A school district spokeswoman said the incident is under investigation.
"Miami-Dade County Public Schools is taking this allegation, which first surfaced last week, very seriously," spokeswoman Daisy Gonzalez-Diego said in a statement. "We regard our students' wellbeing among our top priorities. The employee has been reassigned while we conduct a thorough investigation into this matter."