School bus driver, aide accused in abuse of 10-year-old girl

By Cara McCoy

Thursday, March 4, 2010 | 12:52 p.m.

A Clark County School District bus driver and bus driver’s aide have been suspended without pay pending an investigation into allegations a 10-year-old girl was abused by the aide last month on the bus.

Bus aide Lafayette Clark, 24, was booked on counts of child abuse and coercion in connection with a Feb. 10 incident on a county school bus that was transporting a child home from the Variety School. Bus driver Latasha Anderson, 41, was arrested for child neglect and failing to report child abuse.

According to an arrest warrant dated March 3, the girl told her grandfather the bus aide had hurt her on the way home from school and the grandfather contacted the district.

When investigators interviewed the girl, she recounted that the bus aide was talking to her about something she found to be “boring” and she told him she didn’t want to talk. The aide, later identified as Clark, grabbed the girl’s neck and turned her away from the window, she told police. He asked her why she wasn’t looking at him, and she replied she didn’t want to. Clark then grabbed the seat belt and began squeezing it, authorities said.

He grabbed the girl’s arms and squeezed them tightly with his hand. The girl said she began to scream and told him to stop because he was hurting her, police said. When she told him to stop, he yelled at her and squeezed tighter, she said.

She told investigators she was afraid to get on the bus the next morning but saw that it was a different bus driver and aide, so she got on the bus and went to school. But by the time school was dismissed that day, she was afraid and refused to get on the bus because she thought the bus aide might hurt her again.

In the warrant, investigators recount the scene that is visible in the video recorded on the bus: Clark grabbed the girl by her left arm and squeezed it for a prolonged period of time; he also grabbed both of her wrists and applied pressure by squeezing them together with his left hand and shoving them on her lap. The girl responded by screaming, “Get off, you’re hurting me!” at which point Clark yelled, “Shut up and apologize!” and then said “it would be worse next time,” according to the report.

Clark is then seen pulling on the girl’s seat belt, which was secured around her body. The girl again told Clark he was hurting her. Clark asks the girl “if she wanted to be knock out” and the girl continues to cry, continually rubbing her wrists where they were squeezed and shaking her arm, the report stated.

The warrant indicates Anderson is seen on the tape doing nothing to stop the situation. Investigators said that during the incident Anderson calls bus dispatch to report there is a combative child on the bus. She is heard saying to Clark, “Yeah, you owe me.”

School District spokesman Michael Rodriguez said Clark and Anderson are both suspended without pay pending the investigation by Clark County School District Police.

Both were taken into custody without incident at a Clark County School District transportation facility and taken to the Clark County Detention Center.

Clark has been employed by the school district as a transportation aide since May 2005. Anderson has been employed by the school district’s transportation department since October 1994.

The coercion and child abuse charges are felonies; for Anderson, child neglect is a gross misdemeanor and failure to report is a misdemeanor.