A Gwinnett mother is looking for answers after her special-needs son was beaten up at school, leaving him covered in blood.
Carolina Ciru also wants to know why the boy's school didn't do more to help her son.
Ciru says her 16-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, came home from school bloody and beaten Tuesday.
"It was a lot of bleeding," Ciru said. "I wanted to die at the moment I looked at my child."
Her son, David Gonzalez also had two black eyes.
Ciru said she is concerned by the response by those at Gwinnett County Schools' BRIDGE program, which serves students with developmental and behavioral disorders.
Ciru said her son was sent home on the bus.
"They told me to take him to the hospital. They asked where I was taking. I thought it was a small accident, that I was going to take him to his pediatrician. I didn't realize it was such a serious accident and my child's face was going to be like this,” Ciru said.
The mother told Willis the school didn't convey the extent of her son's injury and bleeding.
"Our teachers and staff at the BRIDGE program are trained to deal with situations involving those students and to teach them. Sometimes there are instances that cannot be prevented or foreseen," said Bernard Watson, director of community and media relations for the Gwinnett County school system.
Watson said Ciru declined to have them call an ambulance.
"We had a nurse tend to the student to make sure he was OK. We immediately called the mother," Watson said.
According to the district, Gonzalez was beaten after he shoved a female teacher. Another student intervened and punched him in the face.
"We are doing the things that we need to do to protect students and our staff, but as I mentioned, sometimes things happen unfortunately and we have to respond and we certainly don't condone this behavior," Watson said.
Still, Ciru and her younger children say the whole incident saddened them.
"It shouldn't happen," said Jared Gonzalez, David’s brother.
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