A California father is in jail today after assaulting an 11-year-old boy on a school bus on Friday. The boy was alleged to have bullied the man's nine-year-old autistic son.
Burnis Heard, 44, was charged with child abuse and corporal injury to a child, and is being held in a Richmond jail on $50,000 bond.
Heard followed his son onto the school bus Friday morning, and asked him to point out the boy who had been bullying him. Richmond Police Lt. Mark Gagan said that when the alleged bully was identified, Heard attacked.
"The father grabbed the 11-year old by the hair, pulled hard and raised the child out of his seat, then shoved him on the side of the bus where the window meets the wall," Gagan told CBS San Francisco.
The police report states that the father threatened to kill the boy, and threatened other students on the bus. The incident was not filmed, and the bus driver neither intervened nor reported the events.
The students were transported to Wilson Elementary School in Richmond, and the 11-year-old reported the assault to Principal Kim Moses.
The child, who is also a special needs student, suffered an abrasion on his cheek and a cut earlobe.
Gagan said Heard had been drinking, but did not regret his actions.
"He was drunk and that was probably an explanation for some of the behavior," Gagan told ABC 7, "but he explained that he was tired of his son being bullied and he felt that was the right thing to do is to confront the youth that he felt were responsible for that."
The victim's aunt and guardian, Shanika Moses, said that Heard deserves a strong punishment.
"I want [Burnis] to be prosecuted to the fullest," she told KPIX 5. It is unclear if Moses is related to the school's principal.
