Jorge Paredes at first didn't want to talk about the allegation against him. But he's now changed his mind, deciding to talk publicly for the first time because he says the school district has never done anything about his son being repeatedly bullied.
Jorge Paredes admits taking his son to a school bus stop near their Baytown home last Friday.
"I drove him down there not to fight the bully but just to tell the bully that he's not gonna get bullied anymore," Paredes said.
But he says two boys started fighting. He insists he never encouraged it and in fact claims he's the one who stepped in and pulled his son off the other boy.
"I think they dropped the ball and they're just using me a scapegoat," Paredes said.
Paredes is charged with felony injury to a child, as is his 11-year-old son. Investigators allege that he drove his boy to the bus stop to beat up the 13-year-old. Paredes says his son was attacked on a district school bus by the same older boy twice since Halloween. He and his wife say the bus driver never reported that.
Last Thursday, they say the same student jumped their son at his bus stop. It's just the latest they claim in a series of incidents where their son was taunted, threatened and attacked, leaving him wounded physically and emotionally.
"My son cannot help his physical appearance," said the child's mother, Christen Paredes.
Over the last year, they say they have repeatedly asked Goose Creek ISD to do something about the alleged bullying.
"It's not being taken care of. They're just disregarding it," she said.
They say they enrolled their son in martial arts classes so he could better defend himself. Since Paredes saw the bullying increasing in intensity and frequency, he said he knew his son had to stand up and tell this older boy the bullying must stop. He insists that all he did.
"I want every kid out there to stand up and don't be afraid to go to school, come home and have a normal life -- just like anybody else," he said.
Goose Creek ISD refused to comment on this latest round of alleged bullying but tells us that "previous district investigations into allegations of bullying made by this parent indicated that the allegations were without support and did not constitute bullying."
A spokesperson insists they will take appropriate action if bullying allegations are sustained here.
The father of the alleged bully says his son has not bullied Paredes' son.
