Lawsuit against AISD regarding sexual assault of young girl moves forward

AUSTIN, Texas - A judge ruled that a lawsuit against the Austin Independent School District can move forward after the district tried to dismiss it. 

The lawsuit centers around a young girl who was sexually assaulted by a bus driver. The lawsuit claims the district's policies led to the assaults, specifically that no one was paying attention to surveillance cameras and that a bus monitor would leave the driver alone with children.

"The cameras were in the bus, but nobody was looking at them. This happened multiple times unfortunately to the young child and had they been watching the videos, at least maybe it would've only happened once, but it happened repetitively, since the cameras weren't being monitored," attorney Randall Kallinen said.

The mother of the young child, Crystal Ayon, says her daughter has had to deal with the effects.

"She's really sad. She has dreams, horrible, she wakes up at 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, and she says she sees somebody in the window, somebody follow her, somebody want to kill her, so she starts screaming and do too many things really, it's sad," she said.

The bus driver is in prison now. Attorneys say sexual assaults of other students in the district have happened before. They're trying to prove that policies make the district liable.

"It's time Austin Independent School District to step up and do the right thing. If they had fought this hard to protect our children as they fought to fight off this lawsuit, then maybe more kids could be protected," attorney James Amaro said.

FOX 7 asked for a response from AISD and was told they don't comment on pending litigation.

For Ayon, she says it's hard to watch what her daughter's going through.

"I feel sad for what happened with my daughter. When I see her have a bad dream, it's really horrible for me. It's sad," she said.

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