A teacher’s aid at G.D. Rogers Garden-Bullock Elementary School has been arrested for child abuse on a 5-year-old boy.
Bradenton Police say on Feb. 4, Quintin Bradley used a heavy rubber play ball to strike the 5-year-old boy with enough force that the student was knocked backward into a chain-link fence. The incident was caught on surveillance video.
In the video, Bradley retrieved the ball and threw it at the child twice more. He then used the ball’s handle to strike the child in the head, teased the child with the threat of a harder throw, and threw it a final time, police said.
The 5-year-old has nonverbal autism. According to Bradenton Police, the child’s teacher who had been sitting nearby witnessed the event and did not intervene, nor did she report the incident.
Bradley says he did it because the child wouldn’t stop crying. He faces charges of Child Abuse without Great Harm. Detectives have also been working with the State Attorney’s Office pending charges on the child’s teacher for Failure to Report.
If anyone has any information on this case, please contact Sergeant Christopher Deshaies at (941) 932-9329.
