You need to be concentrating on your son's health, let a legal firm take care of the rest, as appropriate, they will investigate and find out all your options in the legal system and I think if you hire a firm on contingency, they will be chopping on the bit to help you!
8 year-old assaulted on bus. Advice plz.
- Thread starter RezClone
- Start date
You won’t ever get anything from the kid if the statements are that they were both involved. But you can certainly go after the school system or public transport depending on who runs the busses. They have a responsibility to safeguard the kids in their care. If their camera was down, how long was that down for? Was there negligence on their end for not getting it fixed?
And why are 8 year olds riding busses with 16 year old? Does elementary and high school start at the same time?
And why are 8 year olds riding busses with 16 year old? Does elementary and high school start at the same time?
CycloneErik
Well-Known Member
IMHO, you did the best think for your son and your family. I hope you get the legal system to operate in an expedited way! Hugs and luck!
Ask your lawyer and I'm not a lawyer but My opinion is you're problem is split amongst independent parties at this point and requires money upfront to pursue. Opinion on what you'd possibly might want to look into or discuss with your lawyer:
Public School Bus Driver
1) possibly a mandatory reporter in state event occured
2)reporting conflicting stories mostly across statement to insurance and police that significantly differ might conflict with mandatory reporting requirements
3) depending on #1 and 2 push your CA for any recourse available against the mandatory reporter
4) maybe you can get a civil suit out of a bus driver for failure of mandatory reporting requirements
School
1)call/tell your health insurance company that covers your kid what happened and provide them the contact for the schools insurance and let those to insurance providers fight out who has to pay the medical costs.
Bully
1) restraining order?
2) Civil suit (being under 18 I think the kid parents would get brought into the suit and share in responsibilities)
Public School Bus Driver
1) possibly a mandatory reporter in state event occured
2)reporting conflicting stories mostly across statement to insurance and police that significantly differ might conflict with mandatory reporting requirements
3) depending on #1 and 2 push your CA for any recourse available against the mandatory reporter
4) maybe you can get a civil suit out of a bus driver for failure of mandatory reporting requirements
School
1)call/tell your health insurance company that covers your kid what happened and provide them the contact for the schools insurance and let those to insurance providers fight out who has to pay the medical costs.
Bully
1) restraining order?
2) Civil suit (being under 18 I think the kid parents would get brought into the suit and share in responsibilities)
1. For sure don’t make him understand what he should feel, if he seems fine with no real after issues then he very likely is. Keep an eye on it but otherwise kids can be incredibly resilient.
2. You need to stop listening to internet outrage on here that’s looking for its pound of flesh and take a step back and honestly think about what you want and what’s best for your family. Going through a long process like this when your child appears to be fine can actually make things a lot worse. He will have to give statements, relive the experience, talk to a lot of adults on both sides who will try to pick apart what happened.
If your looking for money, maybe you can get some kind of settlement, if your looking for punishment for the other child legally there isn’t going to be much that can happen that will give you the result you expect, especially if the offending party is 16.
This is a horrible situation but think long and hard before following most of the advice on here (because it’s awful since people can just rage but not have to actually go through the process that you will) if as you state your child is fine and showing no after effects.
This was my next thought as well. Another is getting in touch with the family of the girl assaulted after your son and combining resources.
I am concerned that the 16 year old assaulted another person shortly after. There is a pattern of violent behavior and there might be additional victims in the future.
That's not a bad idea. I hadn't thought of that!
Have to believe there will be. The school year is barely off the groud and this kid has a body count of 2.
Added up they probably don't weigh as much as the bully.
Think this happened back in the spring.
Also, I'm not sure how it works in OP's area, but I know our school district pays for some kids to take uber/taxi to mid-day programs in the city. I would wonder if that's an (not free) accomodation that doesn't usurp the teen's rights but keeps the younger kids safe.
The bus driver is also busy driving the bus, so its not like they would see everything that is going on. I'd assume no charges were filed because they didn't think they could win the case in court. The limited testimony from the bus driver, plus a plausible lie that the older kid told might be enough reasonable doubt that the they couldn't get a conviction. Would you want your 8 year old son to have to testify in court? Would the other parents of kids want their kids to testify in court?
I don't know what I would do. I definitely wouldn't sue the bus driver, unless I really felt that the bus driver was negligent or lying completely. I might sue the school, but I'd feel a little bad there knowing that our public schools (at least in Iowa) are underfunded. But not having a working camera on the bus is a problem. Honestly, if the medical bills were causing a hardship on my family, I might go the route of suing the school. If it wasn't a huge financial burden for my family, I probably wouldn't sue but I'd probably start to raise a stink about things at school board meetings and meetings with the school admins until I saw a change.
Someone brought up the media side of it and that might not be a bad idea. Even just to shed light on the issue like that, it might prompt other schools to ensure their cameras were working or provide more supervision on busses and prevent issues like that in the future.
Does your school have another adult ride the bus? That'd probably be a good policy, although being underfunded, I don't know how schools would hire people for that. Same with bus drivers, some larger schools have had to shift school start times for different ages because they don't have enough bus drivers and their drivers have to drive 2 separate routes.
If it were my kid and if the 16 year old still rode the bus, I'd be taking my kid to school directly, though. Luckily we'd have the flexibility to do that, but thats not true for everyone.
this was from the end of the last school year. Presumably the kid has been expelled after the second incident but I know some school districts really don't believe in expelling anyone.
What is the reason the high school kids are riding the same bus as elementary kids? That just seems like a really bad idea but maybe I'm not considering everything. It's been awhile since I was bus riding age but even in a rural district made up of several towns, there were never situations where I was on the bus with someone potentially 10 years older than me.
This would be a good strategy to pursue. The teenager assaulted two kids and is showing a history of doing it. The girl's lawyer may have more information than you have to try and bridge the gaps you are experiencing with your boy.
