Florida never fails to amuse. This time it’s clowns. Yet, this is no laughing matter. Reports came out of Tampa of someone clad in big clown shoes and a yellow outfit with red polka dots chasing after a teenage girl waiting for her school bus.
The Largo High School student told Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office deputies that a man wearing a clown mask popped out of the bushes, chased her for a few minutes, then disappeared. The student managed to get away.
The sheriff’s office was still investigating the incident and said it has not identified the perpetrator. While unknown what specific charges the person may face, Florida has one law that applies: It’s illegal to wear a mask with the intent to harass someone.
“Parents talk to your children and remind them that we understand Halloween is in a month,” said a sheriff’s spokeswoman. “But when you harass someone it is not okay and can end in a misdemeanor.”
When adults behave like children, someone ends up crying, usually the kids caught in the mix. A confrontation in New York between parents and a school bus driver and aide has turned into a police issue after the altercation was caught on camera.
It should be noted that in the footage, young children can be heard crying to get off their bus.
Parents said the incident took place during morning pick up. The bus driver arrived at their stop and let some kids on the bus. But they said he then purposely shut the doors on four older children. A minute or two later, parents said they heard kids crying and screaming out the windows to get off the bus. When the driver finally stopped, a parent started recording.
Parents said the bus driver and aide didn’t respond when asked why their children were crying or why they didn’t pick up the four older children.
This wasn’t the first confrontation between bus drivers and parents on that route. Parents said the driver, Leo Pulcher, is the co-owner of the bus company. The Hudson City School District said the district placed a different driver and aide on the bus route for the time being as a precaution.
A South Carolina district school bus driver has been handed his pink slip following a report that he allowed a woman to come aboard the school bus he was driving. This is against school protocol. It’s also against Beaufort County School District rules to allow a stranger onto the bus to assault students.
The suspect was reportedly driving behind the bus on the afternoon of and was angry about a water bottle that had been thrown out one of its windows. After picking up the bottle and coming onto the bus, she allegedly yelled at the students, then tossed the bottle back at them as she left, striking one juvenile girl in the face.
Several people have claimed that students on the bus were throwing trash out the bus window for several miles. The district could not comment on that allegation, but said parents and school bus riders are made aware that throwing objects on the bus or out of the windows is prohibited.
While the district didn’t confirm whether the driver was suspended or fired, a spokesperson did report that the man was no longer a district employee. The criminal investigation is ongoing.
“We’re in the process of obtaining video and additional interviews of witnesses and the victim,” one official said.
Again, in South Carolina, a 14-year-old girl recently gave birth to a child fathered by her school bus driver.
Kevin Michael Wesley, Jr., 30, is charged with second and third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor. The victim’s mother told the judge through tears she wants Wesley to “be held accountable for his actions.”
Bond was set at $400,000 and the judge ordered Wesley to have no contact with the victim, her family members or anyone under 18 without a supervising adult present.
According to an affidavit, while Wesley was a bus driver, he befriended a then-14-year-old girl. Police reported that when the girl was no longer on Wesley’s bus route, between September 2015 and December 2015, he continued to keep in contact with her.
After several months of correspondence via text and phone, Wesley persuaded the victim to sneak out of her residence to meet him. He picked up the girl and took her to his apartment, where he convinced her to have sexual intercourse with him. They then began a continuous sexual relationship that lasted until December 2015.
“Throughout their relationship, the defendant chided the victim not to ‘get him caught’ and repeatedly referred to the ‘risks’ he took to be with her,” the affidavit stated. The juvenile eventually told her mother about the improper relationship. Wesley said he was a school bus driver for seven years.
