COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A Cobb County School District bus driver is charged with assault and battery. It comes nearly two years after a father said he attacked his 10-year-old son.
The boy's family said the bus driver turned himself in Monday over those charges and that they are relieved to finally be getting justice for what they feel the district ignored.
In November 2019, the bus driver for students at Lewis Elementary School is seen on bus surveillance video throwing the bus into park and turning around to face the students on his bus. He is talking to them about how to ride the bus safely, then he bolts to the back of the bus.
“I’m talking and you are disobeying the rules,” said the driver.
Justan Mosley said the bus driver was yelling at his son.
"He you know made a beeline toward my son grabbed him up by his collar, jacked him up, yelled in his face a few times," said Mosley.
Mosely’s son can’t be seen in the video nor if the driver touches him. But the driver admitted to making contact with the child when speaking to school’s assistant principal the day after the incident. Their conversation was also captured on bus surveillance video.
"All I did was turn his head. I didn’t harm him in any way, but after I did it I knew it was wrong and I apologized to him when he got off the bus," the driver confessed to the assistant principal.
"We’re human. We make our judgement calls in the middle and then we’re like, 'oh crap,'" said the assistant principal to the driver.
Mosley said he was in shock and felt the district did not take the incident seriously.
“It felt like someone spit in my face and I couldn’t do anything about it,” said Mosely.
Mosely’s attorney said the driver has been on the job since the incident and no one from the district or school has ever reached out to his client.
"They took sides with driver instead of the child, the 10-year-old child, and we thought that was so egregious, so outrageous," said attorney Maluwi Davis.
Mosley said his son only got back on the bus after the driver was put on a different route but the incident caused him to get counseling.
A spokesperson for the school district said it does not discuss pending legal matters.