New Haven school bus stop bully

New Haven (WTNH) - A New Haven mother says her son was beaten up at the bus stop. And now she's come to News Channel 8 for help. She says she was promised protection for her son, but that didn't happen, and now he is in a hospital bed with severe eye injuries.

The middle school student became the target of what appears to be a neighborhood bully. The 12-year-old doesn't go to his school, so there's nothing the principal can do. He just lives in the area near the bus stop and he started picking on 13-year-old Parrisch Lewis last week, who's still in the hospital today.

There's only one dim light in the Yale-New Haven hospital room. The bright light is too much for Lewis.

"It burns, when I put ice on it for awhile, it starts to burn a little bit," Lewis said.

The bone beneath his eye was fractured, damaging the eye muscle. Surgeons had to put in a plate so his eye doesn't collapse. It's not yet clear if he'll get back his vision. Lewis was jumped at his bus stop at the corner of Sherman and Gilbert Streets in New Haven Friday.

But this really started last Monday. He intervened when a 12-year-old was picking on a 6th grade girl. The 12-year-old then brought in his 17-year-old cousin who implied he had a gun.

"That's when he starts to threaten me," Lewis said. "He starts to say, 'Oh, I'm gonna shoot you, I'm gonna get someone to shoot you.'"

Lewis says the 17-year-old then punched him in the face. Scared for his life, his mother filed a report with police.

"He assured myself and my son that he would have an officer around the stop," Lewis' mother, Shartarra Garrett, said.

Lewis's stepfather walked him to the bus stop after that. But they didn't see the 12-year-old or any police. And Friday, the boy went alone and was attacked.

"My son is clutching his chest telling me, 'Mommy, I can't breathe, I can't breathe,' I see blood coming from his nose, his eyes are rolling in the back of his head," Garrett said.

He was rushed to the hospital unresponsive and vomiting. Lewis has a concussion as well as the damage to his eye. He can't see, walk or sit up because he gets dizzy and nauseous.

His mother can't understand why her son ended up in the hospital four days after alerting police who haven't so much as called them back.

"We don't know if they followed up, I can't tell you that they're even taking this situation seriously," Garrett said.

The school has changed his bus stop but Lewis won't be able to go back to school for some time. And his mother says, she's grateful it wasn't worse. She's afraid the 12-year-old will go after him again anyway.

News Channel 8 contacted the police department for comment, we're told, it's not their policy to post officers at bus stops so there may have been a miscommunication. But they're looking seriously at this and are still investigating.