Woman Learns Fate for Abusing Nonverbal Students on School Bus; Surveillance Footage Reveals ‘Gut-Wrenching’ Horror

A woman in Colorado was sentenced to prison after being convicted of physically abusing non-verbal autistic students. The woman, who worked as a school bus aide, was caught on video striking at least three students.

The Colorado school bus aide, 30-year-old Kiarra Jones, was sentenced to 4½ years in prison on March 20, according to prosecutors in the 18th Judicial District.

Jones had pleaded guilty in January to at least 10 counts of third-degree felony assault of an at-risk child and two counts of misdemeanor child abuse.

Judge Laqunya Baker described the videos as "gut-wrenching" to watch and said the prison sentence was appropriate. One of the victims' parents, Kevin Yarbrough, also addressed the court.

"I stand before you today not just as a parent, but as a voice, a voice for my son who cannot stand here and speak for himself, a voice for a child who trusted adults around him to protect him and was instead hurt by someone who was supposed to care for him," Kevin Yarbrough said, according to Colorado Public Radio.

According to reports filed by Law&Crime, the investigation began in 2024 when one of the students returned home with bruises on his feet that had not been there before.

The boy’s mother immediately contacted the bus director from Littleton Public Schools and requested to review the surveillance footage from the camera on the school bus.

The footage revealed that Jones not only assaulted the boy on that day, but had done so on multiple occasions. It also showed that several other students were being abused.

One parent, speaking to CBS affiliate KCNC said, “My son is not able to speak, so I feel my job as a father is to represent him in court, so it is frustrating. That being said, I am happy that after two years of delay, she was finally able to take some accountability for what she did to our kids.”

The Littleton Police Department learned of the suspected abuse on March 28, 2024. Investigators reviewed bus footage showing Jones, a paraprofessional assigned to a student on the bus, hitting the boys several times.

Police obtained an arrest warrant for Jones on April 4, 2024, and took her to Arapahoe County Jail, where she posted a $5000 bond.