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Attack by two students on Lewiston school bus captured on viral video

On Oct. 2, a fight broke out on a bus at Lewiston Middle School when two female students were caught on video allegedly attacking a student in the seat behind them, leaving the victim with a concussion, according to her mother.

“On October 2, my daughter was riding the bus home and was attacked by the two girls. You can see that in this video. The bus driver never stopped. He drove her back to school,” Heather Swift said.

Swift posted a video on X that she said was taken by another student on the bus and shows the attack on her daughter. In the video, Swift's daughter can be seen briefly speaking to another student before he appears to hit her. Afterwards, the scene becomes chaotic, but it is obvious that the unnamed assailant continued to attack Swift's daughter.

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The video shows another student joining the fight on the side of the alleged instigator. It is not clear who recorded the video or how it was released.

The grainy footage shows a third student stepping in to break up the fight near the end of the recording.

Due to the poor audio quality of the clip, the argument between the students cannot be heard, although shouting can clearly be heard.

The students appear to shout “get out” before the fight breaks up and the video ends.

School policy requires the bus driver to either stop immediately and call the police or return to school and contact the school resource officer.

The bus driver decided to return to school.

Swift shared her story during a Lewiston Public School Committee meeting on Monday.

According to Swift's statement and her online post, her daughter went to the hospital after the fight and was diagnosed with a concussion.

She had to lie in pain in her bed in complete darkness from Wednesday to Sunday after the attack because the concussion left her extremely sensitive to light, Swift said.

Swift said her daughter no longer felt safe riding the school bus while her attackers were still there, but the school refused to ban her from the bus.

“I asked you to remove the attackers who attacked my daughter from the school bus. She doesn't feel safe going to school. I was told over and over again that this was their right to go to school on this school bus. My daughter has rights too,” Swift said.

In her testimony to the school board, Swift mentioned that the attackers were suspended for a few days, but the school did not provide her with further details about the punishment.

Swift said the school offered to arrange special transportation for her daughter to and from school so she wouldn't have to ride the bus. However, she declined the school's offer because her daughter is eligible for a “504 plan” for students with disabilities and Swift believed the van would cause too much turmoil in her daughter's life.

Because the school refused to remove the attackers from the bus, Swift was forced to close her hairdressing business in order to drive her daughter to and from school.

Swift told The Maine Wire that she lost $100 a day due to her reduced hours.

She hopes to push for a change in school policy so that violence on the bus automatically leads to a ban on the bus in the future. She said her daughter did not know any of the attackers before the incident on the bus.

Swift said she is pressing assault charges against the attackers and they will appear in court on November 18. However, few details are available as both defendants are minors.

She has opened fundraising pages on both GiveSendGo and GoFundMe, asking for donations to cover her missed time from work, fund her daughter's transfer to private school and cover legal costs so she can sue the school.

The Maine Wire also reached out to several Lewiston Middle School officials for comment and further details on the story, but they did not respond to requests for comment.

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