BALTIMORE — Wednesday morning, Ashley Johnson posted a video on her Instagram, which got a lot of attention.
In the video, she claims her autistic son and other kids in his pre-k class are being abused by their teacher.
“Austin always wants the bus, so when he is forcing not to get on the bus, that really opened our eye to something," said Donte Yates, who's son goes to Federal Hill Preparatory Academy.
Subtle changes are what Yates and Ashley say made them wonder if something was wrong in their son’s classroom.
They say he was always very eager to go to school, but suddenly he no longer wanted to go.
Then they say they started noticing other signs.
“And the flinching the jumping the flinching when you touch him, he’s just so jumpy. That's not my son. My son is a happy baby, a loving baby, a dare devil, and it's just like to see him be so scared when you're touching him or when you’re playing with him; something just didn’t give," said Ashley.
Over the weekend, they had to take their son to the hospital after he started having seizures.
While he was there, his parents say they had to give him CPR twice.
While in the ICU for a few days, Ashley says Austin’s parent teacher reached out to them with some concerning news.
The parent teacher told Ashley his teacher was allegedly hitting him, and there was video evidence of other students getting hit in the classroom.
On Wednesday morning, Ashley posted the videos to social media.
The video caught the attention of other parents, including the parents of one boy who was seen getting slapped.
Vincent Johnson says he was shocked to see his son on the video, but he knew right away it was his son, and he says his son’s behavior had changed recently as well.
“If I go to reach for him or, you know, go to hand him something, he jumps, and he just started doing that like, maybe, two weeks ago," said Vincent.
The video of Vincent’s son was taken on April 22, but his parents say they have no clue how long the alleged abuse may have been going on.
“He’s not verbal; you know he can’t speak, so to see her just popping him like that, I don’t know how many times it's happened," said Vincent.
Desyre Pickett, the boy’s mom, says she is heartbroken.
“So, you know, as a parent we’re supposed to be a protector so for him to have to keep going to this lady’s class and not knowing how long she has been physically harming him, that's more so why it's so heartbreaking to me," said Pickett.
Baltimore City Public Schools issued the statement below:
