Caught on Tape: Student Beaten on Bus

(MYFOX NATIONAL) - Two high school students were caught on a surveillance tape pummeling a third on a school bus on the way to school Monday morning in the St. Louis suburb of Belleville, Ill.

While the beating happened, most of the other riders on the bus just laughed and pointed.

"It's an extreme case of kids behaving poorly," Belleville Police Captain Don Sax said.

Police say kids on the bus repeatedly told the 17-year-old victim he could not sit beside them, so he finally pushed aside a backpack and sat anyway.

"Pretty soon the kid who he sat next to is pushing him, trying to push him out of the seat and the next thing you know he starts punching him and choking him and punching him some more -- it's ridiculous," Sax added.

The bus's surveillance camera shows many of the other kids on the bus laughing and one even used his cell phone to take a photo of the victim's bloodied face.

Four minutes after the first attack, there was a second one.

The two suspects, who are expected to face punishment through the juvenile court system, are 14 and 15 years old. They are African American, and the victim is white.

"It's a strong suggestion that it was race related," Sax said. But the Associated Press reports that police later backed away from the assessment that it was a racially motivated incident.

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