Bus aide arrested again after cops say she abused more special needs students
A former Polk County Public Schools bus attendant walked out of jail earlier this month after she was charged with abusing six special needs students. She was back in jail Wednesday after deputies said she was caught on film hitting two more students.
Juanita Tappin, 43, of Lakeland, was already charged with three counts of child abuse and three counts of abusing disabled adults when Polk County Sheriff’s Special Victims Unit decided to watch 30 days of video from the special needs bus she worked on. Detectives charged her with child abuse and abuse of an disabled adult, according to the sheriff’s office.
The students were riding the bus to Doris A. Sanders Learning Center, which is a school for disabled and special needs children and adults from ages five to 22, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. Most of the students on the bus are non-verbal, so they could not easily communicate what happened.
On May 7, a girl who rides the bus told school staff that Tappin hit her, and the school nurse found two red welts on her face, according to an affidavit. Detectives watched the video from the bus and saw Tappin hit, punch and snap a rubber band on six students — three children and three adults — within a two-hour span that morning.
The video shows Tappin snapping the girl with a rubber band 11 times, hitting her in the face and neck, according to an affidavit. Tappin also snapped another child with the rubber band and hit a child on the head with a plastic seat belt cutter. Deputies said Tappin hit disabled adults with the rubber band in the face and punched one in the torso.
The bus driver told detectives she never noticed Tappin abusing students because she was focused on driving. Tappin denied hitting anyone and told detectives she was acting in a “playful manner” before they arrested her on May 9, the affidavit said. She bonded out of jail on May 11 after paying $6,000.
When detectives watched bus footage for the 30 days before May 7, they saw more incidents of Tappin abusing two previously identified students and hitting two other students, according to a press release. Tappin is accused of hitting an adult in the face with her hand and hitting a child on the head with a plastic water bottle and the metal end of a seat belt.
The affidavit on her most recent arrest is not immediately available online. Tappin was suspended from Polk County Public Schools without pay on May 15 and will be fired during a June 18 school board meeting, a press release said. She remains in the Polk County Jail without bond.
This story was originally published May 31, 2019 at 2:28 PM.