BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. (WSVN) — A South Florida mother is demanding answers, days after cameras captured a bus driver beating her 11-year-old son with a belt.
Cellphone video of Wednesday afternoon’s incident, which shows Liz-Marie Munay’s son being beaten in front of dozens of students, went viral after it was posted on social media. "If you can’t handle children, don’t work with children," she said.
Munay, who works as a teacher for the Palm Beach School District, said her son claims the incident happened after a friend offered him a drink. She said the bus driver told him not to accept the drink, then pulled over and used another student’s belt to beat him.
Munay said she was outraged when she first heard her son’s account, and she has a message for the driver. "You come to my house and tell me, OK? And I’ll take care of that matter, but you are not allowed to touch my child," she said.
After seeing the video, Munay called police to file a report. She said police initially told her nothing happened, until they saw the video.
The driver was taken off the route while school district officials investigate the matter.
Munay said this is not the first time she’s had an issue with bus drivers from the district. "I know that she felt that the cameras on the bus are not working, and I don’t know if they are working or not, because whenever I ask for something, when something happens, for footage, they tell me that the cameras did not work," she said.
School district spokesperson Kathy Burstein released a statement that reads in part, "As soon as the district was alerted to the incident on the bus, School District Police [Department] was brought in to investigate, and video from the bus camera was pulled to corroborate what is shown in the cellphone video. The driver was removed from the route and will not be working with any of our students until the investigation is complete."
It is unclear what consequences the bus driver may be facing.