COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 6 (UPI) -- A Columbus, Ohio, school bus driver allegedly encouraged a student to strike a 9-year-old boy on her bus, police said.
Driver Brenda Abdul-Mateen of the Columbus City Schools was placed on administrative leave Monday, pending an investigation. Police announced Monday she has been charged with contributing to the delinquency or unruliness of a child.
She was driving students on the afternoon of Jan. 25 when she stopped the bus and instructed a Highland Elementary School student to strike another student, police said.
"I let them girls hit him," she later told WBNS-TV. "I know it was wrong but he was just a typical bully."
Police said a bus surveillance video shows Abdul-Mateen holding down the boy's arms as he was struck by girls around him.
"We've got an adult in charge of taking care of these children on a bus, who goes back and encourages an assault on another child," said Sgt. John Hurst of the Columbus Division of the Police Special Victims Unit.
Abdul-Mateen has been a district bus driver for 11 years.
