Shocking CCTV footage shows six-year-old autistic girl slapped by bus aide
A video showing a bus aide slapping a 6-year-old girl with autism has left Illinois parents heartbroken.
The footage, captured on CCTV, shows an empty bus and a bus aide worker alone with a six-year-old autistic girl.
The unidentified aide strikes the little girl twice as she screams while riding to school in New Lenox, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
Nicholas Rushing said his daughter, Kaylee, is non-verbal.
He said he found out about the incident because the superintendent of the local school district contacted him and asked him to review the footage.
He told ABC-7 his "blood boils" watching the video.
"I think about it and it just makes me mad," he said.
"She shouldn't have to go through that."
He said his daughter has been visibly impacted by the alleged incident.
"She can't come back and be like, 'Dad, this lady hit me, not just once, she hit me twice.'"
Mr Rushing said the bus aide had only been with the bus company for two weeks and did not appear to have been trained to follow protocols around Kaylee.
New Lenox police are reviewing the entire video as part of an investigation into the alleged incident Mr Rushing said.
"I'm worried as a dad it may not be the first time this happened," he told CNN.
"My main goal is to make sure this never happens to any other people."
"It just makes me want to cry to be honest as a mum - just seeing that, it's disgusting," Kaylee's mum, Madeline Norley said.
Mr Rushing said staff members notified the school district superintendent about the incident.
The school district told CNN affiliate WLS that the aide involved was not a district employee, and worked for the bus contractor, Lincoln-Way Special Education District.
