School bus fight: Driver Won’t Be Charged For Not Stopping Beating

A school bus fight captured on surveillance video showed that bus driver John Moody, 64, did nothing to stop it.

Moody of Pinellas, Fla., won’t have to face criminal charges for not preventing three 15-year-olds attacking a 13-year-old, on his bus on July 9. The video shows that he called for help but didn’t do anything to actually prevent the beating.

A recording of his call to dispatch confirms his request: “I got a fight…..I need help in a hurry, I got a fight I need help in a hurry.”

The call continues: “Get somebody out here quick, quick quick they’re about to beat this boy to death. Please get somebody here quick. And they’re still doing it. There’s nothing I can do,” he adds.

People have wondered why a grown man wouldn’t try to pull the kids apart. Gulport Police Chief Robert Vincent said, “There was clearly an opportunity for him to intervene and or check on the welfare of the children or the child in this case and he didn’t make any effort to do so.”

School policy specifies that a driver should not interfere in a school bus fight; anyway, Moody said he was too afraid to intervene physically, “The three boys just jumped on him and started pounding on him. And I did all can,” he said. “I was looking. It was like I was in shock. I was petrified.”

Frank McDermott, Moody’s attorney, called child neglect accusations “preposterous, “I don’t think law enforcement should ever tell citizens to intervene in a violent attack. John did what he was trained to do.”

All three teenagers who instigated the school bus fight were charged with aggravated battery.