TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Video of a Tampa student with autism restrained with a “chokehold” administered by a bus driver is troubling to watch and even more difficult to hear, according to the boy’s mother.
Amber Quezada-Martinez said her 14-year-old can be heard saying, “if you’re going to kill me, kill me now.”
“He was terrified. I was horrified,” she said, fighting back tears. “I get a little emotional. It’s still hard for me to watch it.”
Quezada-Martinez said she believes her son truly feared for his life.
“To see my son in that environment where he was supposed to be safe,” Quezada-Martinez said in tears, “that day, my son was not safe. He did not feel safe.”
The police incident report from last Friday states the teen tried to get off Hillsborough County bus number 5397 at the wrong stop to “run away.”
“I was just trying to get off the bus,” the child told police. “I do not want to go back to my group home.”
The 64-year-old bus driver said the student “was trying to escape.”
“I had him in a chokehold,” the driver told police. “He swung at me and missed. I held on to him until y’all (law enforcement) came.”
Quezada-Martinez said stringent restraint is especially dangerous for her son, who had a type of brain surgery that can be impacted by contact.
“If something hits him in the back of the head, he can be in serious trouble,” Quezada-Martinez said.
And she said, like many children with autism, her son has sensory issues.
“Restraining someone with autism is not a good idea,” Quezada-Martinez said. “My son cannot handle that. He has claustrophobia. He is sensitive to that type of [restraint.]”
Hillsborough County Schools spokesperson Erin Maloney said bus drivers are trained to work with students who have mental and physical disabilities.
She said she is restricted on offering details about the incident involving Quezada-Martinez’s son.
“We cannot get into the specifics of this incident as it involves student information,” Maloney said. “However, if an employee witnesses a student putting themselves in danger, they make every attempt to keep a child safe.”
Following a request from 8 On Your Side, Maloney provided a power-point presentation that she said is used to train employees who work on district buses. The material discussed being proactive instead of reactive with special needs students and included training on how to “prevent the undesired behavior.”
There did not appear to be information about use of restraint techniques.
One section titled “Behavior Escalation” displayed bullet points about what to do “when a student escalates.”
“If they run off of the bus,” the slide states. “Do not chase the students, call the police and try to watch for where they went.”
According to police, there are no indications a crime was committed during the incident, but Quezada-Martinez said the personnel on her son’s bus should be re-trained in how to handle this type of situation.
“There are certain ways that you handle autistic children and this was not one of them,” Quezada-Martinez said.
The video obtained by 8 On Your Side was recorded by a student. The bus was also equipped with a video system, but the incident report states, “due to the fact the hard drive was not properly seated, the video from the bus camera was not available.”
