Detroit mother outraged after 9-year-old son left sleeping and locked himself in school bus for hours

A 9-year-old Detroit boy was allegedly left on a school bus for nearly six hours, sparking outrage and concern concerning the school transportation system’s safety protocols.

The boy’s mother, Tashonda Bennett, said she was furious over the incident in which her older son found the younger boy sleeping on the bus around 9:30 p.m. after he didn’t return home as expected several hours earlier.

“I just do not know what to do. I feel like my son shouldn’t have undergone this,” Bennett said: According to Nov2.

A boy attending Detroit Service Learning Academy boarded a school bus together with his 14-year-old sister on Wednesday, June 5, made it through the school day, but never returned home.

“My child is 9 years old. He’s traumatized, he doesn’t want to go to school, he’s even afraid to get on the bus… I feel like the school has let us down. This is my baby who found my baby.”

Bennett explained that she fell asleep while waiting for the boy to return through the door, and stated that she panicked when she woke up around 7 p.m. and saw that he still had not come home from school, having run out that day at noon.

With her heart pounding, Bennett called several places she thought the boy may be.

She spoke to school and police officials, in addition to her family, and after just a few minutes contacted the bus driver.

Bennett blamed the bus driver, claiming that if he had followed protocol, he would have noticed the kid was still on the bus.

“The bus driver didn’t even come here,” she said. “He told me my son didn’t get on the bus, which implies he had no idea he was even sleeping there. That’s why I feel he didn’t make the transition.

The boy’s older sister, who often accompanies him home, said she saw her brother get on the bus but stayed after school for practice that day, resulting in an hours-long search for the missing boy.

“The police didn’t find my child, the school didn’t know where my son was,” Bennett said, while her daughter “kept stressing to me: ‘Mom, I put him on the bus.'”

After hours of searching, the relations finally thought to examine the bus. There, the boy’s brother and grandmother found him sleeping long after sunset.

The bus was locked, so the boy’s 16-year-old brother had to drag him out through a hatch on the bus’s roof.

“He was sleeping. I was banging on the window. He woke up, wiped his eyes, looked around and just started crying,” the brother said. “I knew there was a hatch, so I opened it.”

Detroit police confirmed that the tragedy was over and the boy was found protected and sound.

“We need the police and we need to act together in this situation, my officers cooperated with my grandmother. The grandmother went to one location while officers dealt with business here,” Detroit’s police chief said in an announcement.

It was unclear whether the bus driver involved in the crash would face discipline because Service Learning District Superintendent DeAngelo Alexander didn’t immediately reply to media questions on next steps.

Instead, Alexander issued an announcement emphasizing the weird nature of the incident and promising to review district security policies.

“We are talking to the employees involved about this matter. Additionally, we will conduct a thorough review of our policies and procedures to ensure our practices are consistent with the highest standards in the transportation industry,” the statement read.

This incident is paying homage to a horrific incident that occurred in Miami a yr ago when 6-year-old Unyik Pollydore fell asleep on the school bus through the morning commute, but never woke up when her peers got off from school.

The driver left the school without checking the bus and parked six miles away, leaving the kid alone in a car parking zone in Hialeah, where she woke up dehydrated, alone and scared.

The little girl jumped out the window and ran for help.

She left the car parking zone and disappeared for over an hour before she was finally spotted by Samaritan who called the police.

The school sent a text message to the girl’s mother saying that her daughter had been marked absent from school that day because she was unaware that she had been inadvertently abandoned by a driver who worked for a non-public bus company that had been serving the district for eight years. .

The driver involved in the incident was released, but police never charged him or filed criminal charges.

Back in Detroit, Bennett expressed her determination to carry someone accountable for what happened to her son.

“I just do not know what to do, but I can not let this collapse. I can not,” she said.