School Bus Transportation News at STN Media

Drama in Miami : Special Needs
Driver Tells Her Hijacking Story

(This article appeared in the December 1995 issue of School Transportation News)

ORLANDO - The National Association for Pupil Transportation took time to honor Alicia Chapman, a Miami special needs bus driver who was held hostage aboard a school bus along with her 13 students by a man who threatened her by faking a concealed weapon.

Chapman showed considerable spunk in dealing with a raging, screaming Catalino "Nicky" Sang, a mentally distressed waiter who commandeered the school bus for 75 minutes and ordered her to drive into downtown Miami . After the hijacker pushed his way on the bus behind two students and their mother on its way to Blue Lakes Elementary School , Chapman reached down and keyed the microphone of her two-way radio as a distress signal. An anonymous caller also informed police of the hijacking.

As the bus proceeded at 20 mph on the expressway toward Miami , Florida , State Trooper John Koch pulled alongside and threw a cellular phone into the open door. Chapman was credited with keeping the hijacker calm, keeping up a steady stream of pleas and requests as she yelled at the man in the back of the bus. She refused to close the school bus door, believing she could communicate with police through it, she told a rapt NAPT membership.

"He kept reaching into his jacket, so I really thought he had a gun," Chapman said. "See what I did, I can't believe I did it. I told the guy I didn't want to put in overtime, anything. I was talking to the guy, he was screaming at me and I was screaming at him. He kept telling me to shut up."

On the cellular phone, Sand told police he wanted to go to the Miami IRS office. Police informed him that the bus had already passed the exit. It later turned out that Sang was under financial pressure from two failing restaurants he owned and IRS audit that assessed $15,000 in back taxes. He was described as incoherent and hysterical.

As the situation headed for a climax outside of the Joe's Stone Crab restaurant where Sang had been employed, Chapman refused his final commands. Believing Sang was about to detonate a bomb, a SWAT team sniper fired a single shot into the bus, striking Sang, but not killing him. Chapman said one child was struck with a glass fragment and kept "jumping and jumping." She told the boy to get off near the restaurant.

As the bus approached a police barricade, Chapman described the chaos: "When they shot the first shot [the children] were screaming so load. He kept telling me to go, go, but I didn't want to hit the police cars."

She could see the police. "I kept calling the police and they didn't want to get inside the bus and he kept telling me to close the doors. I could see the police and they were looking at me. I was saying shoot him, kill him, kill him. I tell you if I had a gun, I would kill him even now."

The 46-year-old driver helped officers get the children out of their safety harnesses and off the bus. At the time, police still feared a bomb was aboard.

Chapman, a 10-year veteran private school bus driver, who earned $8.03 and hour after 17 months with the Dade County Schools, told the audience of her frustration with the situation. "I never thought about if I could kill a person, but what he made me go through and all these kids. They had nothing to do with what was going on in his mind. I said to him, why do these kids have to pay, do we know who you are?"

She was praised in the newspapers as a driver who cares about disabled children. All of the students on the bus were either autistic or speech impaired students. "Their parents, when they give you this type of kid," Chapman said, "They say 'God bless you, and take care of my kid.' And you're the one they talk to and you're the one that's there with them."

A joint resolution from the NAPT, National Student Transportation Association and the National Association of State Directors of Student Transportation Services gave thanks to Chapman for "her outstanding efforts to ensure the well being of her passengers and the safe resolution of the crisis."

Two local television crews filmed the event at the Clarion Plaza Hotel in Orlando.