Castle Rock, Colo. (KDVR) – A Douglas County school bus driver accused of dropping 40 children at a cemetery said the situation was “horrendous” and that he could have taken different actions.
Irving Johnson, who goes by Irnie, has been a Douglas County school bus driver for seven years and has never done anything like this.
The route he usually travels was a dark week, meaning it wasn’t traveling, so he was given the task of filling in a way he didn’t know.
He later said that when the children boarded the bus on Monday, they were quiet.
“I picked up all the kids and spent about 15 to 20 minutes standing in front of the school trying to get them to quiet down and sit in their proper seats,” Johnson said.
He said the principal had to get on the bus to calm the children down before they left.
‘Sorry is never good enough’: School bus driver accused of blocking 40 children outside Castle Rock cemetery.
Johnson said the principal even offered to ride the track with him, but he declined.
However, after making two stops, the tablet gives directions in the stopped working direction.
“The tablet wasn’t working properly, so I asked the kids to tell me where to stop … because I’ve never driven this way before and I didn’t know where they were,” said Johnson.
So, Johnson said he started taking directions from the kids, and that he knew exactly where they were and where they needed to go.
He said he stopped as soon as he reached the next bus stop after he saw a group of adults who he thought were parents waiting on the side of the road.
Johnson said he looked back on the bus and saw a line of children ready to get off.
He said he stopped the first child and asked if that was their stop, but the child did not answer, he continued to get off.
Johnson also said it wasn’t a riot at all, unlike what some parents are describing.
“Perhaps they felt that since I was worried about the direction and the way it was handled, that it is better to get off the bus, but there was no violence about it,” he said.
“I didn’t tell the kids to leave the bus,” said Johnson. “They are expected to get off when they stop and know where they are, and that is what I assumed they were doing until I saw that there were not many children on the bus.
After the children got off, Johnson said his mouth was dry and he didn’t know what to do, so he went back to the station.
The bus driver who dropped off the students at the wrong location is ‘no longer used’ by the Douglas County School District
He said they realized that they had to follow the district’s plan and announced that they would send them or get off the bus to talk to the children.
“It was scary and I didn’t handle it well,” said Johnson.
Johnson was then suspended by the district.
He said he would miss the children and apologized to anyone he had wronged.
“I apologize to anyone who sees this that I made a mistake by not being able to fix it when it happened,” he said.
Each school bus has video and recorders, but the school district said the video will not be released until later because the incident is under investigation by the Castle Rock Police Department.
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