An email forwarded to me from a friend of mine:
At approximately 10 o’clock this morning, Prospect Bus #9 was involved in
an incident. Four students were on the bus when a woman exited a car and
“flagged the bus down”. The bus stopped, the bus driver opened the door,
and the woman entered the bus claiming that her husband had a gun and was
threatening to kill her. The husband drove off, the police were called,
and the woman remained on the bus until the police arrived.At no time did any of our students or the bus driver see any evidence of a
gun. The incident is being investigated by several police departments.
The parents of the four students who were on the bus have been contacted,
as have their respective counselors and social workers.The bus driver in this situation violated established procedures. She
should never have stopped the bus in the first place, and she should not
have opened the door for the woman. The appropriate protocol would have
been for her to contact the Mt. Prospect Police Department and inform them
that there was a frantic woman who looked like she needed assistance. As a
result of the driver’s actions, she will no longer drive buses that
transport District 214 students.As always, our primary concern is for the safety of our students. We
regret this incident occurred and will be revisiting safety procedures
with the bus company. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel
free to contact me.
Now: I am of several minds on this.
1: The bus driver is responsible for the children on the bus, and their safety. period.
2: if you see a hysterical woman running away from what she perceives as a threat,
and you do not atempt to help her, you are an asshole and you should be shot.
3: The need to potentially save a woman’s life and to protect the safety of your charges is a pretty tight balance.
I don’t know the circumstances. I don’t know who or what was around at the time. I suspect that, people being the assholes that they are, the woman ostensibly in danger went to the schoolbus thinking 1: This person is most likely to help me, everyone else will hit the gas and leave me to my asshole husband’s whims, and 2: the bus is a natural safe haven, and 3: Common sense may keep my asshole husband from shooting at a schoolbus full of kids.
What I do know, is the bus driver did what, on the surface, was the most decent thing to do. I applaud her for what she did. That she lost her job for being a decent human being is deplorable. That they stopped the bus run rather than possibly offend someone and the whole focus was “where was the gun” is typical of the People’s Republic of Illinois.
Anyone who is a parent will immediately say, protect my kids FIRST. At the price of someone else’s life?
Thoughts?
10 comments Og | Uncategorized
That’s a tough one. If the husband had opened fire on the bus and the kids had been hurt or witnessed a violent crime, the outrage would be even greater. As the parent of two school age kids, It’s hard for me to make that choice.
As for protecting my kids at the price of someone else’s life. Hell Yeah. I’d easily run down someone if it meant my kids wouldn’t get hurt. I don’t know too many parents that wouldn’t.
That’s exactly how I feel, Contagion. And I also feel that only an ass ignores a woman in distress. Yep, tough decision.
I disagree. The decision is only tough if the person in it forgets his duty.
Spin the scenario.
Islamofascist terrorists are well-known to use despicable tactics which play on the sympathies of more-civilized individuals. They use women and children for shields and bait, as well as for explosive mules.
We are at war with these people. (Or, rather, they are waging war on us, despite our left wing’s resolute attempts to pretend otherwise.)
Security is everyone’s job, most especially however those in whose charge we leave our most innocent and vulnerable — those charged with the safety of children. And women. The sick, frail, and elderly.
(Sounds like you, Alger.)
(I’m warning you, Dolly…)
Anyone given such a charge may take it as given that his sense of duty will be challenged. A double-bind situation is a classic and sure to be an early try on the part of the enemy.
The lesson to be taken from this is DO NOT abdicate your primary responsibility, NO MATTER the temptation. Things are not always what they seem. The safest course of action is to assume that anything out of the ordinary is a threat.
Our apparent unwillingness to accept this is one reason, I suspect, that the enemy sees us as an environment rich in soft targets.
And so long as liberal, assume-the-fetal-position defensive tactics rule the day, they will be right.
That’s not to say one leaves the apparent potential victim to the tender mercies of her predator. Only that there must be a way of addressing the problem without endangering one’s primary charge.
M
What a no-win. But the scene is too sparse to truly Monday Morning Quarterback. Was this in a desolate area, where the bus was the only thing to save her, or could she have gone into a store or restaurant to wait?
The driver should not be fired, for all of the “if’s” did not happen. Too many blamestorming sessions are based on what could’ve happened, instead of what actually occurred. Only the driver had the sixth sense that the woman was legit, that she was not the whacked out one. She had a few seconds to make a snap call on what we can evaluate at our leisure all night.
Me, I’d radio for a cop, I’d try to get her to go anywhere else but on the bus, even to just run into the tree line for cover, but damned if I open the door, for those four kids still left on the bus are MY kids until I safely drop them off in front of their houses.
I might be an asshole, I might have to remember sitting idly as her husband shot her rather than have the bus be the shooting gallery. But I’d dump the clutch and run them both over if it looked like these two would harm my passengers. But I grew up in Gary, so to me everyone in life is running a con game until I can be convinced otherwise.
I once had a guard job in a subdivision when a wife called the cops to get her husband who was coming in to shoot her. Schererville, Dyer, and Highland descended on the guy at the front gate like seagulls at White Castle, yanked him out of the car, and slammed his face in the ground. It turned out he was unarmed, and had a carry permit on him (even if he did have his weapon, he was legal). They were going through a divorce, and she was just doing yet one more thing to make his life hell.
The lesson to be taken from this is DO NOT abdicate your primary responsibility, NO MATTER the temptation. Things are not always what they seem. The safest course of action is to assume that anything out of the ordinary is a threat. Amen.
My question is this: If the guy had a gun, how was she able to get out of the car? It would seem to me that unless she jumped out of the vehicle while it was moving or was able to get in a good sucker punch, the jerk wouldn’t have let her get out if he had murder on his mind.
I’m not saying the bus driver should or shouldn’t have helped her. I’m just saying that for me, there’s a puzzle piece missing.
I would not have had her fired but a strict reprimand would have sufficed it seems in this case as the “ifs” never happened. But then I am a generous chap, if it was me driving the bus… I would have floored the gas and got on the radio or dialled 911 on my cell… I am a very suspicious driver!
Fuck! Is the correct answer 7?
For a second, I thought this was a test.
Lmao!
it’s a tough one, no doubt. At the end of the day, my feeling is to protect the kids FIRST, and be glad nothing else happened, and establish a specific procedure (as m. Alger says) that can be used counter terror.
I’m a parent, and I think it is better for the children on the bus to see the driver do the compassionate thing and help the woman. How much worse would it have been if the driver had refused to open the door and the kids had watched the woman die at the hands of the man? I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking that it’s perfectly reasonable to ignore someone in trouble.
All the “we didn’t see a gun” stuff can equally emphasize that it wasn’t dangerous to help the woman, just as much as it can be used to say that she wasn’t really in danger.
I send out best wishes for the bus driver. 9/11 can be used to show that we must be hideously vigilant or it can be used to show that life is precious and we should cherish our relationships and our connectedness.
As a parent I will say that I believe the procedure established by the bus company is the right one. The firing of the unreliable (can’t follow orders in emergency situations) bus driver is warranted.
This could have gone wrong in so many ways it makes me angry to think about it. Anyone every hear of Laurie Dann? Let alone all the other murderous, evil and psychotic people that occupy this planet.
I was linked to this site through Kim du Toit’s site. I’m enjoying it!!!
Tim