Background: The apartment complex in Greenwood, Ind., where the alleged incident took place on Oct. 31 (Google Maps). Insets (left to right): Donquarious Ridley and Raven Barner (Johnson County Jail).
The parents of an Indiana grade-schooler were arrested after they allegedly attacked several children on a school bus.
Donquarious Ridley, 27, and Raven Barner, 25, were charged on Monday with two counts of battery on a child under the age of 14; Ridley was also charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. According to a probable cause affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime, police were called to an apartment complex in Greenwood on the morning of Oct. 31 after Ridley and Barner were seen by several witnesses getting onto a school bus and then "yelling at kids."
Police said that one of the children who was on the bus told them that Ridley and Barner were yelling at the kids because they were purportedly bullying their son. Barner is the boy's stepmother.
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According to the affidavit, camera footage taken inside the bus caught the entire incident. Police said the video showed Barner and Ridley getting on the bus after their son was picked up. The affidavit noted that the bus driver did not give them permission to board the bus.
Barner allegedly initiated a verbal altercation with two children and told one of them that she would "beat his a—." She then allegedly told the same boy that she would get her stepson to "beat his a—." Barner could apparently be seen in the video "encouraging" her stepson to "start an altercation."
When the bus driver got up and put herself between Barner and one of the children, Barner allegedly struck two of the kids, one of them "inadvertently."
Ridley was also allegedly seen on video telling his son to engage with the boy Barner allegedly hit. Police said that Ridley's son complied and hit the other boy. Ridley then allegedly threw the boy to the ground, allowing his son to "begin striking him repeatedly." Following his son's alleged attack on the boy, Ridley then shoved another child back into one of the bus seats "hard enough to hit the side of the bus."
Police tracked down Ridley and Barner while they were driving and initiated a traffic stop. Both parents were arrested and booked into the Johnson County Jail.
Ridley was charged with two counts of battery on a child under the age of 14 and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Barner was charged with two counts of battery on a child under the age of 14. Neither parent appeared on the Johnson County Jail roster on Tuesday.
Ridley is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 1; Barner is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 4.