Nice to see a reporter who isn't following the crowd.
Coworkers are rallying to the defense of a Hartland bus driver after he was charged with intoxicated driving and endangering the safety of the children on his school bus.
The driver was arrested Jan. 27 in Hartland after kids called their parents claiming they were being abducted by their reckless driver after he missed their stops....
This was a 'cut and dried' case when it first hit the news. Driver? DUI. Children? Victims.
Case closed.
Yah, well, not so fast.....see, there are those bothersome video cameras installed in school buses. One at the front, one at the rear, focuses set on the passengers. There's also a camera which focuses on the driver and the entry/exit (service) door.
....."I've watched hours and hours and hours of bus footage that we've obtained," said defense attorney Anthony Cotton in court Wednesday.
...Cotton argued the video doesn't support the claims of the kids that Cunningham was driving wildly before he was stopped by police.
"You will conclude watching these videos, your honor, that there's not a hint of impairment in terms of driving behavior at all on these videos," Cotton said....
Oh. Well, THAT'S news.
(It is NOT news that kids will lie, by the way. They also lie to Mommy and Daddy. A lot.)
Oh, yes, it gets a lot worse, but Channel 12 did not transcribe all of the video.
If you go to 1:00 there, you will hear that the kids on the bus were extremely rowdy, screaming and cursing at the driver and that THEY STARTED A FIRE ON THE BUS.
Yes.
We've always had questions about the "DUI" ticket, as the driver was using prescribed medication, and when you have a CDL, there are lots of restrictions on which meds you may/may not take when driving. It is hard to believe that a DUI will stand up in a trial--but we'll see.
More interesting is whether the bus company will file criminal complaints against the Little Darling Fire-Starters Chad and Boopsie after the videos go public.
Beyond that, there's this:
...Judge J. Arthur Melvin lowered Cunningham's $1 million bail to $150,000, saying the earlier bail was unnecessarily high.
"A million dollars is maybe appropriate for some sort of premeditated murder or perhaps even a negligent homicide where it is clear the defendant has the motivation to flee," Melvin said....
The court commissioner who set the bail is Chris Bailey. Does he customarily set "unnecessarily high" bail for armed robbery, Kia Boy-like drivers, or other DUI's (alcohol) in this Couuty?
Or did some Hartland bigwig influence his emotional outburst and decision?
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