School bus driver fired over handgun
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, February 2, 2010
A school bus driver who failed to report a 13-year-old girl with a pistol on his bus or at a bus stop has been fired.
“He is no longer with us,” Vicksburg Warren School District Superintendent Dr. James Price said this morning.
The driver’s name was not released, but school officials said he was a veteran with numerous years of service with the district.
The girl, who was not identified because she is a minor, was charged Friday night with being in possession of a firearm on school property, a felony. She was placed in the custody of county youth officials. Her case will be processed through Warren County Youth Court, where she was scheduled to have a hearing this morning.
Charged as an adult was Julius De’shun Mobley, 17, 4900 Rollingwood Estates Drive. He is accused of giving the weapon to the girl, Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said Saturday.
No additional arrests have been made in the case but investigators from the sheriff’s office and school law enforcement were continuing to investigate and Pace would not rule out additional arrests.
“It’s a very serious matter,” said Price. He met with VWSD resource officer De-wayne Sims and transportation supervisor David Keen Monday morning. “We’re getting statements from all the children on the bus and piecing it together.”
Price said some of the statements were contradictory, especially on whether the girl actually had the gun on the bus.
“We will not know that until we get all our interviews conducted,” Price said. “But whether on the bus or not, if there was a gun at a bus stop, that stop is an extension of this campus.”
Sims and deputies were questioning students.
The bus was taking home 11 to 14 Grove Street School students in first through 12th grades, Sims said. Grove Street is an alternative school for children as young as kindergarten who require instruction that can’t be given in a traditional classroom setting.
The Friday incident began, Pace said, when the 13-year-old argued with another juvenile while riding the bus and made a phone call to Mobley, apparently asking him to bring the weapon, a .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol and give it to her at a bus stop.
Pace said she is believed to have picked it up from him on Gibson Road near Rollingwood Estates, either getting off the bus and reboarding it or having the weapon passed to her at the stop.
The incident was reported to the sheriff’s department by the parent of another student on the bus. Pace said the driver did not report the gun to school officials or law enforcement.
Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com