M-104 Bus heading South in NYC

Received Friday, July 11, 2008
Yesterday, (Thurs. July 10th) at about 3 or 4 pm on the M-104 bus going south in Manhattan, way at the back of the bus I saw a nanny sitting near a young boy and a girl of about 11 who I think was the nanny's daughter. The boy and girl were seated together, with the nanny seated nearby but paying no attention to them. The girl began to tease the little boy by hitting his leg and smiling, but when he began to hit her back, smiling also, she turned away -- I think she was deliberately provoking him -- and so he began to tap her more insistently. He wasn't at all hitting her or doing this in a hostile way -- he was trying to play with her. The nanny suddenly noticed what he was doing, lunged over toward him and yanked him by the arm so hard that he was rubbing it afterward. She almost slammed him into the back seat of the bus next to him and reprimanded him very harshly. He looked bewildered and then very withdrawn, as though he was used to this treatment. I tried to say something to the nanny -- that the girl had been playing with him -- but she was very irritable and did not listen to me. I felt very, very sorry for the sweet little boy. For identification purposes, the little boy was slim, white, had glasses, maybe 3 or 4 years old, and the nanny was black, somewhat overweight but not obese. The girl was pre-adolescent and also black.