KCSD and WCS Follow Up on Alleged Assault on Bus
NORTH WEBSTER — Wawasee Community Schools, along with Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department and North Webster Police have continued to follow the story of Deklan Hawthorne, a 6-year-old boy whose father reported his son was assaulted on an unsupervised school bus.
Brock Hawthorne, Deklan’s father, reached out to local news outlets to share his story and started a GoFundMe account requesting $75,000 in donations to raise community awareness. Brock later changed the amount to $7,500.
KCSD has been leading the investigation and conducted many interviews with the help of North Webster Police of both children and parents during the course of the investigation. A KCSD officer took the initial report Sept. 8, completing the report after watching the full bus video provided by WCS.
At this time, WCS has not been able to show Deklan’s father, Brock, a copy of the video. Dr. Tom Edington, WCS superintendent, explained the school system’s reasoning, noting the video technology is difficult to manipulate and adamantly refusing to show video that would violate the rights of other parents and their children.
Neither WCS or KCSD could go into much detail about the investigation. KCSD had this statement for release: “We can confirm that an investigation was completed, and the information was forwarded to the prosecutor’s office and probation.” KCSD was reluctant to release any details of the case because of the young age of those involved.
However, Edington and the investigating officer both stressed the bus driver was present on the bus during the entire length of the video. The video runs until the bus turns off when the driver parks in front of North Webster Elementary School.
Edington feels that had the incident escalated as stated by Brock, even after the video had ended, the bus driver would have handled the situation before either boy exited the bus to start the school day.
WCS is continuing to work to blur the faces of the other children in the video, which will make it available for Brock to view, although the school has not heard any additional requests to view the video since the original incident.