A Douglas County School District bus driver dropped off about 40 elementary children at an unfamiliar stop. Some children said they felt kidnapped before leaving the bus.
Some children were close to their homes despite the incorrect stop, but many were miles away from home. Tony Smith told ABC 7 Denver his eight-year-old daughter’s GPS showed she was over a mile from her usual stop.
“She’s normally dropped off around 4:15 in the neighborhood, pretty much right around the corner,” he said. He became suspicious when other kids from her school came looking for her.
“Another kid from another family one street above us came by and stopped and asked if she was home and we were like no, we had assumed she was just playing with her friends while walking this way,” said Martin. “And he said no, that he was dropped off several neighborhoods away from where he was supposed to be and walked and that she was dropped off somewhere else randomly.”
Some children said the driver drove erratically for an hour before dropping them off at the wrong stop. Parents accused him of kicking the kids off the bus.
The school bus driver said it was due to faulty tech
Irving Johnson, the bus driver covering for the usual driver, blamed the tablet navigation system the district gave to drivers. Johnson felt upset by the accusation that he was anything other than nice to the children.
“It’s been said in the media that some of the kids said I told them to get out of the bus, and that’s not correct. I said nothing to them,” Johnson said.
“I opened the door, and they knew that this was at least close to where they were supposed to get off, and they just were getting off.”
Johnson said he’s been a driver with the district for almost a decade and became confused when the navigation system started malfunctioning.
“Let me make it clear to you that this was the first time I had driven that route in that direction, and so I was dependent upon the tablet to be clear on where I would go. And it was, you know, it was dusk,” he said.
“Little harder to read the street signs… I knew we had turned prematurely,” Johnson said.
“I saw the parents on the side of the road. I saw I was on the wrong side of the road, but because they were all there, I felt it was okay to stop there.”
A few bad apples helped spoil the whole basket, he said
Johnson said many children were misbehaving and being rowdy, causing more confusion for him.
“The ones in back weren’t even listening. So, I got the kids maybe in the first five or six rows to quiet down and get in their seats and sit. And I walked down the aisle and spoke to the older kids in the back, and they persisted in talking,” continued Johnson.
“So, I got a little louder, and they stopped talking as loudly, and they sat down because they had no choice. I was right there. I said, ‘You know, I can be as tough as I need to be to get you to behave on the bus.’”
Johnson said he’d driven with the district for so long, that he knows his regular routes by heart. He can even recall the names of the children he sees and knows their stops. Driving an unfamiliar route, with unfamiliar children paired with a faulty navigation system caused him to panic.
“I recognize I could have done better at that stop when the rest of the kids got off the bus. And it was bizarre for me, and I think I was really stunned by it and I didn’t know what to do,” said Johnson.
After several frantic calls from concerned parents, the district told him he wasn’t to return to work. Johnson, feeling slighted, was eager for a chance to defend himself.
“The district called me up today and said that I’m not to come back to work,” Johnson said.
“I said I’d much rather resign than be fired. I’ve never been fired in my life.”
He continues to blame the tablet system. Johnson said it was on tape that he told the children the tablet wasn’t working, causing his panic.
The school district and local police continue to investigate the incident. All 40 children remained unharmed and got home safely.
