Iowa mom slams autistic son, 9, to the ground at gas station; punches witness who stepped in to save boy

In a shocking incident at a gas station in Iowa that was captured on camera, a woman body-slammed and punched her autistic son into the ground and even punched a good samaritan who tried to stop her.

The video of the incident from September 12 showed that the woman, Rejanie Morris, was scolding the nine-year-old boy inside the Quik Trip. The terrified boy can then be heard shrieking in terror as his mother pulled him up under her arms and lobbed him into the gas station's tiles like a ragdoll. Michael Lomax, an onlooker who stepped in to save the boy, recalled about the horrific incident: "The child is screaming for his life. I'm like, 'Unhand him! Let him go!'"

"She smacked his face, and that's when I came in, and I pushed her. Like, 'Get off of him. You don't do that to a child,'" he told KCCI.

It was Lomax's fiancé, Arekya Quinn, who leaped into action to collect evidence and recorded a portion of the alleged assault. Another video that she recorded showed that Morris only momentarily halted her attack, and went on to punch her son in the back of the head.

Quinn then physically confronted Morris and wrestled her to the ground, striking her several times. Meanwhile, police officers arrived at the scene to find Morris "screaming, yelling, and throwing property." They took her into custody, but it was only after a while that they realised she had assaulted her son in addition to vandalising the property.

Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said, "Once we were able to get her in custody and she calmed down a little bit, what we learned was that prior to our arrival - she had actually assaulted her child twice."

"To see it on video is horrifying. And you do become concerned about if she is going to do this in a public place, what kind of things are going on at home," the sergeant added.

Morris has been arrested and booked on child endangerment and assault charges for the horror she inflicted on her son. She has been placed into the custody of Iowa's Department of Human Services.