In a disturbing turn of events, a teaching aide has been charged with assaulting multiple autistic children on a school bus operated by Littleton Public Schools in Colorado. Kiarra Jones, 29, has been accused of repeatedly punching and abusing at least three children, leaving them with bruises, cuts, and other injuries over a period of several months.
The shocking footage, provided by the law firm Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, which is representing the affected families, shows Jones violently attacking a 10-year-old autistic boy who has severe autism and is non-verbal. In the video, Jones can be seen elbowing the child in the stomach, striking him in the face, and then slamming his head into the bus window with such force that the boy’s head flung back and hit the seat.
The devastated parents of the children involved have spoken out, expressing their outrage and heartbreak over the abuse their sons endured. Jessica Vestal, the mother of the 10-year-old boy seen in the video, wiped away tears as she demanded, “How dare you fail my son in such an astonishingly preventable way?”
Vestal, who had previously bought Jones Christmas gifts and texted her regularly, said she was immediately “thrown into disbelief” when she saw the footage. Between last September and March of this year, Vestal documented 15 instances where she found her son, Dax, suffering from unexplained injuries, three of which coincided with footage of Jones’ alleged abuse.
The Joshua School, a specialized institution offering one-on-one instruction for autistic students, operates independently from Littleton Public Schools. However, the children were transported to and from the school on a specialized bus operated by the district. According to the families’ attorney, the Joshua School had raised concerns about abuse occurring on the bus with Littleton Public Schools, but the district’s response was inadequate.
“LPS looked at a single bus ride and determined there was nothing to be concerned about and provided no further monitoring, allowing months of uninterrupted abuse to continue,” the statement from the families’ lawyer reads.
Kevin Yarbrough, the father of an 11-year-old severely autistic and non-verbal boy who was also on Jones’ bus, expressed his outrage, saying, “My son was abused by the people who were put into place specifically to protect him.”
In addition to the 10-year-old boy seen in the video, the families of two other children have come forward, detailing their own experiences of unexplained injuries, including a bleeding ear, a broken toe, and other deep bruises on their children’s bodies.
The parents acknowledged that autistic children can sometimes hurt themselves, but they all attributed the mysterious injuries to the alleged abuse by Jones. “He is a self-injurious child. We usually, unfortunately, make the assumption that he has done it to himself,” Yarbrough said.
The Littleton Public Schools district has since released a statement, stating that Jones was hired in August after “satisfactory reference checks and after passing a thorough background check.” The district also noted that Jones “had very limited access to students during her employment” and has had no contact with students since her termination on March 19.
As the families seek justice for their children, the horrifying details of this case have left the community in shock and outrage, demanding accountability and change to ensure the safety of vulnerable students in the future.
