HOPEWELL, Va. — A Hopewell mother is demanding answers after her 6-year-old son was mistakenly dropped off at a bus stop alone instead of his after-school daycare, leaving him unaccounted for over an hour.
Tyara Catts expected her first-grade son Antoine to be dropped off at his after-school daycare by his bus driver from Patrick Copeland Elementary. Instead, the young boy was left alone at a regular bus stop with no guardian present.
"I'm still kind of in shock. Like I'm still processing it," Catts said.
Antoine was missing for more than an hour before being returned to the school by a stranger who found him walking alone and crying.
"I signed a slip saying this is where he was supposed to be, this is the address. I don't know what happened," Catts said.
The concerned mother only discovered her son was missing when she went to pick him up from daycare and he wasn't there. After driving back to the school to search for him, she learned the first-grader had been dropped off at his regular bus stop alone.
"He just dropped me off by myself and no one was there to pick me up," Antoine said.
"I don't why a bus driver would tell him that he could walk home. He's only 6 years old," Catts said.
The area where Antoine was left alone raises additional safety concerns for his mother.
"Usually cars come flying through around our house, there are loose dogs around our house. It's not the worst, but it's not the best either," Catts said.
Antoine was eventually brought back to the school by a good Samaritan who spotted him alone and distressed.
"I was heated, I was livid. I couldn't even speak right away when they told me exactly what happened. I couldn't believe it," Catts said.
Antoine described the frightening experience and his rescue.
"He told me he was crying, he was scared. He stopped at the corner and a lady saw him in a black truck," Catts said.
"She saw me walking by myself back to the bus stop and then she said, 'Come on, get in the car,' but good thing she's a nice person," Antoine said.
The incident has left Catts deeply concerned about what could have happened.
"Anything could have happened. He could have been abducted. She could have just told him to come on and I'd never seen my son again," Catts said.
Hopewell schools confirmed that Antoine was mistakenly dropped off at the wrong location in violation of division policy. School officials stated that their policy requires an adult be present for kindergarten and first-grade student drop-offs. They added that the issue is being addressed as a personnel matter.
"This is a big mistake. It's a big mistake to make," Catts said.
Catts is demanding assurances before sending her son back to school.
"I told them that I need to have an incident report and then he can return to school, but I need to be guaranteed that this is not going to happen again," Catts said.
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