Beating of bus driver by Dallas middle schoolers emerges on tape as officials promise new probe: report

Beating of bus driver by Dallas middle schoolers emerges on tape as officials promise new probe: report
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/video-shows-beating-bus-driver-mid...
BY TOBIAS SALINGER NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, August 18, 2015, 6:47 AM

A Dallas-area school bus driver was beaten up by middle school students because he asked who threw a Dr. Pepper bottle at him, according to reports.

Video showing a group of seventh and eighth grade students punching and pushing George Diaz, 63, out of the bus surfaced Friday in a report by KDFW-TV. The security footage from February displays the students going after him after he stops the bus to ask who had thrown the bottle.

Diaz was able to get back into the bus and finish the route after the beatdown Feb. 12. Three students from Forest Meadow Junior High School were suspended, the TV station reported.

Officials with Dallas County Schools promised a new investigation Monday into the apparent assault.

FOX 4
Dallas-area bus driver George Diaz recounts the videotaped assault in February by junior high school students.
Diaz, who has hired a lawyer, has said the agency’s police didn’t probe the one-sided scuffle and even discouraged him from pressing charges.

Superintendent Rick Sorrells, in an interview with KDFW, promised to examine the Dallas County Schools Police Department’s handling of the case and meet with the bus driver.

Diaz tapped attorney Pete Schulte to represent him after the former deputy sheriff and prosecutor weighed in on the video in the TV station’s initial report.

The video shows a bottle flying past Diaz and landing on the dashboard. Diaz says the kids beat him when he asked who threw the projectile.

“The bus driver is the adult in charge,” Schulte told KDFW. “These are middle schoolers. They have to listen to the authority that's on that bus, and when they don't and they start throwing punches, that's a crime."

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