Reason 482 to Home School Your Children
February 16, 2008
Drunk Man Rides School Bus
By Sonny Turner
sonny@athensnews-courier.com
Published January 25, 2008 09:46 pm
Elaine Pack was alarmed when she learned an intoxicated 21-year-old man, pretending to be a student, flagged down a school bus and rode to Owens Elementary school with her 13-year-old son and other students.
She filed a complaint with county school officials after the incident Wednesday morning.
“You never know, he could have had a gun or some other weapon,” Pack said. “I’m concerned because I think the children on that bus could have faced real danger there.”
But a Limestone County Sheriff’s investigator said the bus driver, who allowed the man to get on the bus at Smith-Gover Road in western Limestone County, had no way of knowing the man was not a student.
Eric Allen Clem, of 22268 Sugar Way Road, Elkmont, was arrested Wednesday after Principal Cleo Miller saw him wandering the parking lot at Owens. He was charged with public intoxication and removed from the grounds.
“He could have passed for a student,” said Lt. Fred Sloss of the Limestone County Sheriff’s Department. “He told the bus driver he was a student at West Limestone High School, but when he got to Owens Elementary he got off the bus,” said Sloss. “The principal noticed him wandering in the parking lot and called the school resource officer.”
Pack said her son was the next to get on the bus.
“He said he got on and went to the back of the bus and sat down. He said the man then got up and walked to the back and sat down beside him,” Pack said. “My son told me the man kept asking for cigarettes. He said it was pretty obvious something wasn’t right – that he appeared to be drinking.”
Clem has previous arrests for burglary and possession of marijuana, Sloss said.
Clem told Officer Dean Murray he had taken some pain medication before flagging down the school bus. Investigators believed he was drunk.
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February 16th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
He could have passed for a student??? Right… I know Alabama has terrible school systems (I’m from there and have an aunt who is a teacher there so I’ve seen first hand) but a 21 year old going to an elementary school! Please.
February 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Very frightening! When I was a kid, the bus driver already knew if a new student was going to be picked up. If you weren’t on the list, you didn’t get on the bus. You would think that maybe the bus driver would have done a little more investigating, especially when he got off at the elementary school.
February 16th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Personally, I think the bus driver has a screw loose. How in the world can you not tell the difference between a 21 year old and an elementary student? Good grief! If the bus driver has the same route every day there is also no way that he or she would not know what students ride their bus!
Terri
February 16th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
I look young (or at least I did in my twenties!). I worked in public schools as a sign language interpreter, and worked on many campuses. While working on a jr. high campus in 1995, I got yelled at (really, yelled at) by a teacher who insisted that I go to the lunch area and not wander the halls during noon hour. I told him I was going to the staff room, as I was working there, and he called me a liar.
I was working on another campus, an elementary school this time, in 1996 while pregnant with my first baby. The principal told me that a parent had complained that there was a pregnant teen working at the school, and assuming I was unmarried, she thought that I was corrupting the children.
However, a school bus driver should NEVER pick up anyone that is not on his route. That is an incredible act of stupidity.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57679
March 7th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335673,00.html
and here is the next reason..