Bus Driver: 'I Didn't Do Anything Wrong'
Kim Sullivan Cleared of Wrongdoing After Brawl With 15-Year-Old Caught on Tape
By DEBORAH ROBERTS, JEFF DIAMOND and KATIE ESCHERICH
July 9, 2008—
The video was a YouTube sensation — 15-year-old Samantha Taylor caught on a security camera, out of control on an Arizona school bus. For 10 minutes she threatened driver Kim Sullivan.
"It's distracting when I'm driving," Sullivan said, speaking about the incident for the first time to ABC News' Deborah Roberts. "It makes it dangerous. And I finally thought, 'All right, this is way out of control.' And I got up and said, 'Call 911!'"
"I didn't really look at her as an authority figure," Samantha said. "She wasn't someone I needed to respect, because she didn't respect anyone back."
"I remember when [Samantha] kinda started yelling," said Sullivan's daughter Erin, who was also on the bus. "And you could tell they were trying to get some kind of rise out of my mom."
The scene shocked Highley Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Joyce Lutrey, who said "there are rules" about how bus drivers maintain order.
"They go through extensive training," she said. "There's a special license. And those are very important because the driver's main responsibility is getting children to and from school safely and ready to learn."
'She Just Started Going Off At Me'
Sullivan, who works just outside Phoenix, is not the first to lose order on her bus. Each year, there are hundreds of cases of schoolbus violence nationwide, but none got as much notice as the incident on Sullivan's bus in February.
"She was upset that I was talking on my cell phone too loud, even though the person two seats behind her was sitting on her phone just the whole time," Samantha said. "But when I touched the seat, I got yelled at because I was being too loud and distracting her."
In fact, this wasn't Samantha's first run-in at school. She had been suspended in the past and targeted as a discipline problem on the school bus.
On this day, when she continued taunting Sullivan, the bus driver pulled over and laid down the law, enforcing the strict rules she's ordered to follow.
"She pulled over," Samantha said. "And like, she just started going off at me, just chewing me out in front of everyone. I got up, and I was like, 'Okay, I'm just gonna get off the bus. And I'll deal with it tomorrow.'"
Just a block away from a scheduled stop, the confrontation escalated. Sullivan said she did the best she could, but she didn't let Samantha get off the bus.
"It's an unauthorized stop," Sullivan said. "I can't do that. My job is to make sure that she's safely delivered to where she's supposed to be."
Situation Escalates
Soon one of Samantha's friend's got involved, adding to the tension. While Sullivan struggled to keep calm, Samantha phoned her mom, Paula, claiming that the driver was being abusive.
"She calls me on the phone, and she's like, 'Talk to the bus driver,'" Paula Taylor said. "I'm like, 'Okay, give her the phone.' And then all of a sudden, I had no noise. The phone goes dead. I now have no communication. I don't know anything of what's going on."
Sullivan hung up the phone and tossed it aside, enraging Samantha who tried to lean forward and grab it.
"And I'm blocking her because, the motor, it's running," said Sullivan. "Now all the controls are there. It would endanger everybody and herself. So she couldn't get in that area! And when I was backwards, I pulled as hard as I could because I wanted her off of me. And her face was in my face.
"All of a sudden I hear this loud bang," recalled Erin Sullivan. "I kind of remember running up and the next thing I know, I'm on her and then something in me just goes, 'Pull hair! Pull hair!' That's just what I did!"
Seconds later, chaos erupted. Samantha accused Sullivan of hitting her even though there's no punching seen on camera.
"She just started like hitting me and violently pushing me," Samantha said. "Like something snapped and she decided to go on this hitting rampage where she decided to beat up a 15-year-old."
Sullivan strenuously denies hitting Samantha.
"I wasn't hitting anybody!" she said. "I just kept pushing her back. She just couldn't get, get past that spot!"
Frantic parents gathered outside the parked bus and someone opened an emergency exit allowing the students to leave. A police investigation was soon underway, and the security tape would be key evidence.
The tape was played on local and national news and posted on the internet. Samantha became known as the "bus girl," and was vilified in chat rooms and e-mail.
"If this woman would have just ignored that whole thing, dropped all the kids, gone back to school and said, 'You know what, I've got a student on this bus I just can't drive with one more day,'" said Paula Taylor. "I would have said, 'Well kid, I guess then you were kicked off the bus and you have to deal with it.'"
Stepping Up Bus Security
After seeing the tape and questioning students, the school district sided with bus driver Sullivan.
"I wouldn't put any blame whatsoever on the bus driver," said Higley's Assistant Superintendent Dr. Denise Birdwell. "I think she did everything given the situation that she was trained to do. And that was in accordance to policy and the law."
The incident at Higley has led schools around the country to re-think bus security. In Mesa, Ariz., the district is experimenting with stepping up bus security that when fully up and running will offer a live video feed to the school district and the police.
"If they were seeing it live, they're saying, 'Wow. This is escalating. You know this could get ugly,'" said Jan Strauss, the former chief of police and a consultant to AlertStar, the company that designed the new system. "And it gives the districts the opportunity to do whatever they need to do to get their people out of there and also to alert law enforcement."
After a two month investigation, law enforcement and school officials cleared driver Sullivan. Her daughter Erin was remanded to anger management classes. Samantha Taylor was expelled from school and charged with a crime — misdemeanor disorderly conduct. If convicted she could face six months in juvenile detention.
"Let's not hold Samantha to a higher standard than the adult," said Samatha's lawyer, Michael Urbano. "The bus driver should have exercised adult discretion and let her off the bus and just continued on. There were mistakes on both sides."
"I wouldn't want to say anything to [Sullivan]," Samantha said. "I would not, one word. I wish I had handled that situation differently. But never will you see me talk to her or her daughter at all. Ever! No way!"
The school system is standing by its driver who hopes that this incident will be a wake-up call that will lead to better security on school buses, and who doesn't think that she overreacted.
"I did what I had to do to make the bus safe," she said. "What would I regret? I knew I didn't do anything wrong!"