A school bus driver in Utah has been fired after he was filmed brutally attacking an autistic student.
The horrifying footage shows Alpine School District bus driver Gary Bertagnole wrestling and hitting the student, who is also blind after he told her to "knock it off, you can behave on my bus".
Footage of the assault, believed to have happened last year, has gone viral.
A report by local news station KUTV says a lawsuit was filed against the Alpine School District on Thursday (local time).
The lawsuit says the child was punched, slapped, painfully restrained, verbally abused and "cruelly" taunted.
"It's disturbing. It's violent," said attorney Aaron Kinikini about the assault.
"I don't think you could come to any other conclusion except that he [the bus driver] had not been trained at all," Kinikini, who is representing the family concerned, told KUTV.
According to Kinikini, other support staff on the bus as well as the driver did not know how to handle the child's behaviour.
Police said the incident was investigated but no charges were laid.
"When this case was brought to our police department's attention, the parents of the child requested that no charges be filed," Saratoga Spring City police spokesman David Johnson told Fox13.
In a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune, Alpine School District spokeswoman Kimberly Bird said it was unlikely the matter could be discussed with the public. She said the district had not yet received the lawsuit.
Newshub.
