A school bus driver in California has been arrested in connection with the death nearly six months of a 19-year-old autistic man who was left behind on a school bus.
KNBC-TV reports that Armando Abel Ramirez, 36, was arrested on suspicion of dependent abuse. He was the driver who allegedly parked a school bus at a depot in Whittier, Calif., in September 2015 and left it with Hun Joon "Paul" Lee, 19, inside. Temperatures in Southern California that day approached 100 degrees.
Police say Lee was found unresponsive on the bus around 4:15 p.m. Workers and paramedics tried to revive him, but he was pronounced dead.
Lee's parents have sued the transportation company, Pupil Transportation Cooperative, contending that the company's policies designed to prevent students from being left on buses were not followed.
Lee rode the bus to a transition program at the Sierra Education Center near Sierra Vista High School in Whittier at about 8:30 a.m. the day he died, and should have boarded it to return home by 4 p.m.
When he didn't get home on time, his mother notified the school district, and Lee subsequently was found on the bus. The lawsuit contends that Lee never got off the bus in the morning and the driver parked the bus at the depot and left the young man inside.
