A Colorado paraprofessional has been hit with felony assault charges for allegedly abusing multiple non-verbal children with special needs on several occasions, with at least two of the disturbing incidents being caught on camera.
Kiarra Jones, 29, was employed with Littleton Public Schools as a bus assistant from the summer of 2023 until she was fired on March 19 — the same day she allegedly assaulted a ten-year-old boy for the last time, reports CPR News.
Video footage that the bus’s internal cameras captured that day shows Jones elbowing the special needs child in his torso and shoulders before violently stomping on his foot.
GRAPHIC: A staff member at a school in Denver, CO was arrested after she was caught on video beating a disabled child.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 9, 2024
What is going on in these schools?! How are they vetting their staff? pic.twitter.com/24zj1LAIP0
When her son came home from school with bruises, Jessica Vestal called the police — and that was Jones’ last day working for the district.
According to Vestal, her son’s foot had a large bruise that looked like a “bowling ball” had been dropped on it. That was already bad enough, but further investigation by the authorities found that this was not the first time Jones had allegedly abused him.
An affidavit that Englewood Police filed, which the local news outlet obtained, states that another video captured on February 13 shows Jones allegedly hitting Vestal’s son in the mouth with her closed fist, hitting him with the backside of her hand, repeatedly poking his face, and yanking his hair.
“She also repeatedly dropped a toy on the ground, and when he went to get it, she would hold his head down and then grab his jaw,” the publication wrote of the harrowing accusations.
After reviewing more footage, authorities believe that Jones allegedly assaulted another special needs student that same day by pulling his hair.
Blake McBride is speaking out against Littleton Public Schools — located in the Denver metropolitan area — after police told him that Jones victimized his son just a day after district superintendent Todd Lambert “ensured” him that his “son was not present or a victim in this case.”
“We haven’t seen the video,” McBride said. “We have asked for the videos, and we were met with lies. We want Littleton to be held accountable for what has happened to our children.”
Lambert also claimed in a Tuesday letter to parents that Jones had “very limited access to students during her employment with LPS.”
Kevin Yarbrough’s son might also be a victim of the disgraced bus aide, with the father now suspecting her involvement in a broken foot his child mysteriously sustained in the fall.
“I’m here today because I failed,” Yarbrough said at a Tuesday press conference where the families of the alleged victims spoke out with their legal team. “I failed him by trusting that the ladies on the bus and the people of the Littleton school district would also be there to protect him.”
“I had assumed that when his teachers had a rough time getting off the bus there wasn’t a grown woman who was verbally and physically torturing my son and his friends. My son doesn’t have the ability to tell me when school is hurting him,” the heartbroken father said.
Jones, whom police believe may have assaulted even more children with developmental disabilities, carefully gained the students’ parents’ trust over time.
“I literally bought her Christmas presents at Christmastime and tea when she wasn’t feeling good,” Vestal said. “It’s disgusting, and every day, it was, ‘Oh, you guys are my favorite family on the bus’…It’s sick. It’s insane, but he’s safe now.”
Because her son was known to occasionally injure himself, Vestal was not alarmed when she noticed small scrapes and bumps from time to time. But when Jones began riding the bus with her child, she noticed that he would come home with more dramatic bruises on his body and even a black eye.
One day, the boy reportedly even “came home without one of his back baby teeth, even though it hadn’t been loose that morning.”
On yet another occasion, a “massive wad of gum” was “stuck purposefully in his hair,” according to CPR News.
“You’d think having cameras on the bus would mean better safety, obviously that’s not the case,” Vestal said.
The alleged abuser, who had no serious criminal history other than driving infractions, had to pass a background check before being hired by the school district.
Ed Hopkins Jr., who is representing the Vestal, Yarbrough, and McBride families, is fighting to ensure school officials are held accountable.
“This was an institutional failure. Multiple people had to fail for this to happen,” the attorney said. “There was video in the bus and it still happened over months. The family reached out to the school and it still continued to happen over months. That’s failure.”
Hopkins said he and the families began contacting The Joshua School, a private institution contracted by Littleton, back in the fall about unexplained injuries and panic attacks noticed in the kids.
During the press conference, the legal team said it was unknown if Littleton ever reviewed or investigated the complaints or even looked at the bus footage.
Though Englewood Police are still looking through the videos, only the most recent eight weeks of footage are available because they were discarded after that time.
“We fight with school districts over our kids’ IEPs (individualized education plans). And we fight with doctors. We fight all damn day,” Brittany Yarbrough said. “But we never, it never even occurred to us, that it could be someone on the bus. Because you shouldn’t have to fight for their safety.”
The alleged victim’s mother added, “That just wasn’t even a thought. It’s like, of course, they’re going to keep our kids safe. Forget about the education. Keeping our kids safe was something we never questioned.”
Jones has been charged with one count of third-degree assault on an at-risk person, the New York Post reported, citing court records.
It is expected that she may face additional criminal charges as the investigation continues, though she has already posted bond at the Arapahoe County Jail.
Her next court date is scheduled for May 3.
