by Andy Banker,
COLLINSVILLE, IL (KTVI) – Fox 2 in St. Louis, Mo. obtained IPOD video of a wild bus ride home for 5th and 6th grade students in Collinsville, IL.
At least one parent was furious at what she heard and saw in that video and by what she said was the lack of action from school authorities.
She said it happened Monday, February 27th; She reported it to the principal, the bus company, and the school district the next day.
She said she hadn’t heard back from anyone.
Superintendent, Robert Green, told Fox 2 Monday night, it was the first he’d heard of the incident and that he wanted to see the video.
The close to 4 minute clip starts with two students involved in what seems to be horseplay. It escalates about quickly: one boy shouts a sexual vulgarity with the other boy`s head in his lap.
At this point, Jackie Luttrell, the mother of the boy who recorded the video, had seen enough.
‘I was appalled. I had my husband come look at it. He was appalled…my expectation of the bus driver is to pull over until those kids are seated and quiet,’ Luttrell said.
From the sound of the bus and from the speed of the scenery passing by the windows in the video, the bus nearly slows to complete stop, about 15 seconds after the sexual remark, but on it rolls on the ride home from Dorris Intermediate School. 10 seconds after that near stop, one boy gets out of seat, and begins wrestling with the other.
About 45 seconds later, it happens again. Students are using foul language throughout, including racial slurs. They ultimately urge the boys to fight for real.
‘Fight, fight, fight,’ the students chant.
‘The language is appalling. They don`t cuss like that in school, why should that be allowed on the school bus?’ Luttrell wondered.
She also she said she asked the bus company to see video from the bus`s on board camera if there was any, but was not allowed.
‘Why not? They`re recording my son,’ she questioned.
You can hear the driver repeatedly yelling at the students to behave, but the bus keeps going. Then, with bus stopped, the boys slap each other in the face.
‘How do you like it? Huh?’ One boy says to the other after slapping his face.
‘Whoa!!!’ roar the students after the boy slaps him back.
About 25 seconds later, nearly four minutes after the clip started, the bus driver, out of her seat, breaks it up.
‘Stop! Stop it! Let go of him,’ she yells at the boys, separating them and getting them back into their seats.
‘If she would have stopped it at the name calling. If she would have stopped it at the chanting of the kids going, ‘fight, fight, fight’, none of this would have gotten that far,’ Luttrell said.
She said she found about this, when her son came home wondering how to post a video to YouTube.
There was no school Monday. First Student provides bus service for Collinsville.
Fox 2 reached a spokeswoman in Ohio. In a return message, she said there would be a full investigation She said drivers were trained to pull over and call for help if there was anything out of the ordinary on the bus.
