Knee-Jerk Reaction

It’s the end of a workday. Imagine you’re a school bus driver taking middle school students' home. For many years I drove a school bus and can conjure up a vivid scene of this in my imagination.

Shortly after the school year began, a school bus driver stopped to drop off a middle school student. A student on the bus said something insulting to the student exiting the bus. A male relative of the student who’d exited overheard the comment. He had a knee-jerk reaction to pull out a handgun and walk aggressively toward the bus, pointing the handgun at the kids.

The driver left the area before the confrontation could escalate.

The school district reported the incident to the authorities, and an investigation followed.

Three months after the incident, the authorities arrested the owner of the handgun and charged him with 19-counts of Second-Degree Assault. He spent the holidays and the next four months in jail.

He accepted a plea agreement and pleaded guilty to the charges agreeing to be sentenced to 5-years in prison with all but the time he’d already served suspended—no additional time to serve. As part of the agreement, he is serving five years of supervised release and had to remove all firearms from his home.

Had he fired the weapon, the outcome would have been far worse.

Source: County Sheriff’s Office, The Baynet

All data and information provided is for information and research purposes only and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. Criminal cases may have been appealed or verdicts overturned since I researched the case. All information is provided on an as-is basis.