Posted on 02/26/2008 2:19:42 PM PST by freedomwarrior998
Surveillance footage from a Gilbert school bus shows the driver and a 15-year-old student physically confronting one another on February 15th.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc15.com ...
Good question about the boys.
Girl involved in bus brawl says actions were "immature"
Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.27.2008MESA The high school student caught on videotape scuffling with a school bus driver said she's taking responsibility for her actions.
"I should have sat back down and sucked it up and acted more mature about it," Samantha Taylor,15, a student at Williams Field High School said Tuesday. "I was really immature." A surveillance camera inside the bus captured the Feb. 15 incident.
Taylor said Higley Unified School District administrators have recommended she be expelled for her actions. Gilbert police have recommended prosecutors file aggravated assault charges against her.
Taylor said it wouldn't be fair to face such extreme consequences because she did not touch the driver, 54-year-old Kim Sullivan.
"She knew the video was working," said Paula Bigler, the girl's mother. "And if you watch the video, she backs herself backward in the video and you can't see or hear her."
Taylor said the bus driver started the fight because she stopped the bus and told her she needed to find a different way to school because she was being too loud. Taylor said that's why she wanted to get off the bus. "I'm 5-foot-9 and I'm big, and she was pushing me," Taylor said. "I was kind of resisting, and she was pushing me really hard."
A Gilbert police report released Monday indicates that one of Taylor's earrings was pulled out in the scuffle. "I don't think it's right, the fact that she could be so aggressive and go after my daughter," Bigler said. "I don't agree with that."
Bigler said she wants the bus driver fired, but district officials said Tuesday they would stand by the driver's actions.
And as is the case in all witness observation, one's emotions and preconceptions at the time of the incident prejudice and charge-up how the incident is remembered.
I do not take the words of the student who called 911 and used the words "gone insane" as a accurate or fair description of what he was seeing and experiencing . The student is part of the mob by that time -- the mob was almost feral by that point. The situation was crazy -- that is how the words "gone insane" might realistically be interpreted. The situation was so far beyond his normal expectations that they were "insane" to him.
Yet by his report to the 911 dispatcher that description applied to the driver may well have become part of the words flying at the scene - it might have prejudiced the police response on arrival at the scene and it certainly would prejudice the testimony of the parents at the scene if it was they heard it on the police radio, or from the police themselves upon arrival.
So the descriptions of parents at the event that were then given to the police could well be prejudicially biased against the driver.
Sad
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