Texas Bus Driver Subjects Children to Extreme Heat “Punishment”
What would make someone stop a bus full of children on a dirt road without air conditioning subjecting them to extreme temperatures of 103 degrees for over 30 minutes and why has the school district done nothing about it? Those are the questions parents, attorneys and civil rights activists are asking after a bus driver with Sealy Independent School District in Sealy, Texas did just that.
Video Released Today
Video of the incident can be viewed below. Warning: Foul language is being used throughout the video.
New video released today by attorneys for Coshenna Smith, the mother of two of the children, shows the incident from August 22. Shortly after dropping her own daughter off, the driver turned down a dirt road and stopped calling for the children to roll their windows up. The driver, who was actually cooled by a personal fan, continued this behavior even as the children cried that they couldn’t breathe and begged her to drive. If that wasn’t bad enough, the drive would tease the children by driving three miles per hour down the road.
30 Minutes to Drive Over 3 Miles
According to reports, it took the driver over 30 minutes to drive three miles in this fashion while the children were subjected to dangerous heat. Another video shows Smith’s children, 12-year-old Bryce and 11-year-old Cionni, returning home after finally escaping the bus. Cionni, who has chronic asthma, is crying as she repeats that she couldn’t breathe while Bryce removes the shirt which was soaked through with sweat from the ordeal.
Smith is represented by renowned national civil rights attorney Harry Daniels.
“People are arrested all the time because they accidentally subjected their children to these conditions while they ran into a gas station,” said Daniels. “This woman intentionally put these children at risk for more than half an hour during a 103 degree heat advisory and no one has done anything.”
“This isn’t punishment. It’s torture and it’s child endangerment.”
Daniels says the family and attorneys are currently reviewing all legal avenues including a potential civil lawsuit against the school district.
