Expelling 1st grader from school due to another childs fighting because of zero

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My granddaughter rides the school bus to and from school. She is in the 1st grade. She is one of the last dropped off and is on the bus for 45 min. to an hour. Her parents car is not reliable so the school bus transportation is needed. The same kid has picked fights with her and other kids for 2 years now. My granddaughter has anxiety attacks and ADHA (not fully diagnosed). One of her coping mechanisms is to scream whenever two people are fighting (argueing) near her. One day on the bus the boy in question, a 5th grader, started picking on the kids near him. My granddaughter says "they were argueing and argueing and then fighting and hitting and I just lost it grandma, I got so scared". She started screaming. Well when all was said and done the next day 10 childern, to include most in lower level grades and the 5th grader and my granddaughter, were expelled from school for 3 days. And to top it off she was given a school bus expulsion to start the day she can return to school. My daughter tried to convince the Principal this was not appropriate and that she felt her daughter did nothing but to allert the bus driver to the fighting. The video tape does not clearly show who started the fighting, but all kids near it said it was the 5th grader. My granddaughter is considered an at-risk child. She has learning disabilities and has been seeing a special teacher for a part of each day to work on her age appropriate development skills. Now she will probably miss 6 days of school because of a zero tolerance rule. That is the rule that is being sited as to why the children are expelled. Do you believe that the Zero Tolerance rule is being abused by our coutries school systems?