Bus driver no longer driving after student assaulted, beaten with belt during fight on bus

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE/Gray News) - A bus driver in Kentucky is no longer driving students while the school district investigates a fight that broke out between two middle school students on a bus.

Mother Whitney Davis says her son Kionni Davis, 12, was left with two black eyes after he was beaten by another student on the bus. Kionni is a student at Kammerer Middle School in the Jefferson County Public School District.

A video of the incident, posted to Facebook and discovered by his mother, shows Kionni being repeatedly punched in the head. For over a minute, the punching continues while students cheer on.

Davis said her son was also beaten with a belt. Throughout the ordeal, she said the bus driver never intervened.

“I taught him to turn the other cheek,” Davis said. “I taught him to ignore bullying. I had no idea that he would ever go through something like this.”

She later learned that what had started as a fight between the students at school had escalated into an attack on the bus. She said Kionni and her other three children who also attend schools in Jefferson County are traumatized by the incident. She’s now considering whether to pull her children from the district.

“If they weren’t walkers and they weren’t across the street, I don’t know if I’d be sending them to school, and at this time I’m looking for other options,” Davis said.

JCPS spokesperson Carolyn Callahan said the students involved are being disciplined in accordance with the Student Support and Behavior Intervention Handbook.

In reference to district policy regarding fights on buses, Callahan said if a fight begins on a bus, drivers are required to “project their voices” and tell them to stop. Drivers must make an effort to get the fight to stop, are required to pull over in a safe location, and must contact the compound to report the fight. The compound will then call the police, if necessary.

However, drivers are not required to get in the middle of the fight. Callahan said drivers have the right to protect themselves by “stepping back, never forward.”

After learning what happened to Kionni, two youth-based organizations, Hip Hop N 2 Learning and The Real Young Prodigies, threw him a party Wednesday to celebrate his upcoming 13th birthday.

“Violence on JCPS school buses is one of the reasons there is a bus driver shortage,” said Antonio Taylor with Hip Hop N 2 Learning. “This is an issue that the district and the community can have a hand in, but ultimately is the responsibility of the parents to tell their students the consequences of violence and bullying.”

“It takes a leader to stand up against a bully, a follower will allow and ignore bullying,” said JCPS student Love Eden with The Real Young Prodigies.

Davis says she’s filed a police report with the JCPS Police Department and has hired an attorney.

As they figure out the next steps, she says the support their family has received from community organizations has been overwhelming.

“Everybody’s love and support for us is just amazing,” Kionni told reporters. “It’s overwhelming at times, but it feels great to have a community that will stand by you.”

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