PEORIA, Ariz. — A former Peoria Unified School District employee was arrested Thursday after she allegedly smacked a non-verbal child multiple times on a school bus, court records show.
Mary Padgett, 70, is facing a felony charge of child abuse after a school bus camera recorded the transportation aide allegedly striking a child on March 8.
Public records show Padgett was sitting near the child and was feeding him cereal before the student became "agitated."
Padgett allegedly responded by going behind where the student was sitting and "pushing the student twice on the right of his head" and once on the left side.
Padgett then fed the child some more cereal and then stopped. The student allegedly "spat toward Padgett and the school employee responded by going behind the student and striking the student with an open palm four times to the back of the student's head," according to court records.
The bus driver reported the incident and law enforcement was notified. Investigators reviewed the bus' camera footage and took Padgett into custody.
The child's mother addressed the suspect during her initial court appearance and called Padgett a "morally bankrupt coward."
"Nothing you can ever say will matter to me or help restore my son's dignity," the mother said to the suspect.
"We saw some behaviors emotionally and physically. One of the things he started doing that he hadn't been doing before is he started hitting himself on the back of the head," said David Farrow, the father of the child.
"That was pretty unusual for us, we didn't think anything of it. Maybe it was something that he was trying to communicate to us. Looking back, it seems pretty clear that was his way of communicating to us that something was amiss," Farrow added.
Farrow is now concerned about the other students who ride the bus with his 11-year-old son and whether this was a one-time incident.
"There's two other kids who are non-speaking that ride the bus. Now their families have to wonder, what about us" he said.
Arizona DPS is investigating the incident, because the alleged incident happened on Interstate 17 near Loop 303 as the child was being driven home from school in Scottsdale.
Farrow says his son has a new driver and a new aide.
The school district said Padgett was terminated from PUSD on March 14. PUSD said after the incident it immediately contacted the Department of Child Services and police and is cooperating with the investigation.
According to court records Padgett worked with the district for five years.
>> Download the 12News app for the latest local breaking news straight to your phone.
UP TO SPEED
What is the Valley?:
“The Valley” is what locals call the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It is considered the largest metropolitan area in the Southwest.
The Valley is made up of various major cities other than Phoenix, including:
- Mesa
- Chandler
- Scottsdale
- Tempe
- Glendale
- Surprise
- Peoria
- Gilbert
- El Mirage
- Avondale
- Litchfield Park
- Goodyear
- Buckeye
Whether a city is in the “East Valley” or “West Valley” depends on where it is in relation to Phoenix.
The cities of the Valley have a combined population of 4,845,832 people, according to the 2020 United States Census. This makes it the 11th largest metropolitan area in the country right behind the Boston and Atlanta areas.
How big is Maricopa County?
Maricopa County is the United States’ 4th largest county in terms of population with 4,485,414 people, according to the 2020 Census.
The county contains around 63% of Arizona’s population and is 9,224 square miles. That makes the county larger than seven U.S. states (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Hampshire).
One of the largest park systems in the nation is also located in Maricopa County. The county has an estimated 120,000 acres of open space parks that includes hundreds of miles of trails, nature centers and campgrounds.
The county’s seat is located in Phoenix, which is also the state capital and the census-designated 5th most populous city in the United States.
The county was named after the Maricopa, or Piipaash, Native American Tribe.