Tennessee School Bus Driver
Slain by High School Student

By Ryan Gray | Senior Editor

CUMBERLAND CITY, Tenn. - The 24 children en route to school and their driver Joyce Gregory never saw it coming. Neither did this rural town of approximately 5,000, situated about 50 miles northwest of Nashville near the Tennessee-Kentucky border.

With details still unfolding, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the 23rd Judicial District Attorney's Office are asking exactly what prompted 14-year-old Jason Clinard, a freshman at Stewart County High School, to allegedly shoot the 47-year-old Gregory multiple times as the second-year school bus driver loaded children at a stop in front of the boy's house.

"I don't know if we can say for sure what would put somebody over the edge," said Bureau spokesperson Jennifer Johnson.

What is known is that Clinard allegedly unfurled a .45 caliber handgun moments after another student boarded the bus and opened fire on Gregory, a wife and mother of two, as she sat behind the wheel. Meanwhile, as Gregory slumped over mortally wounded, the bus began to roll out of control down the road. The student who had boarded the bus prior to the gunshots ran back to the driver's seat and tried to assist Gregory. The quick-thinking student grabbed the wheel and steered the bus into a utility pole.

"A utility pole might sound like a bad idea but it stopped the bus from careening out of control with all those kids onboard," Johnson said. "(Gregory) must have just had her foot on brake."

Clinard, who had yet to enter the bus before opening fire, fled to a nearby wooded area. Johnson said he emerged about 45 minutes later and surrendered to law enforcement authorities.

She added that several older students had the wherewithal to evacuate younger children, many as young as 6-years-old, through the emergency exit door located at the back of the bus.

A neighbor who heard the commotion and came outside to investigate took all the students into his house to await emergency responders, who arrived within minutes, Johnson said. No other injuries were reported.

Several phone calls to the Stewart County school district went unreturned. A judge issued a gag order on March 9 affecting all lawyers, investigators and school officials.

In memory of Gregory, the state's school bus drivers affixed black ribbons on the front of all school buses

There is speculation that Clinard, who is being charged with first degree murder and is remanded to a mental health institution for observation, lashed out in response to a reprimand issued by Gregory earlier in the week for chewing tobacco on the bus. A spokesperson at the District Attorney's Stewart County office in nearby Dover said Clinard's mental state would be evaluated for up to 30 days in lieu of bond. It is yet unclear whether Clinard will at that time be arraigned in Juvenile Court.

"There's not any hurry to decide if he's to be tried as an adult," she added.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Clinard was not known as being a troublemaker.

"He was not in and out of trouble a lot to the degree where people would have said they'd expect this to happen," spokesperson Johnson said. "No one saw this coming."

'Unheard of' Tragedy

Gregory's death is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. In an open letter to the industry from NAPT, NASDPTS and NSTA, the fatal shooting was described as unlike any incident in the history of the yellow school bus.

"Like 500,000 fellow school bus drivers around the country, Joyce Gregory's day began very early and routinely when she left her home to begin her route," wrote the respective presidents of the three associations: Steven Kalmes, Pete Japikse and Dale Krapf. "But unlike any other driver in the long and proud history of pupil transportation, her day and future ended suddenly and criminally when a teenage student who rode her bus shot and killed her as she stopped to pick him up."

Consultant Carlisle Beasley, former transportation director for Nashville Metro schools and a 45-year veteran of the pupil transportation industry, said: "I cannot recall any school bus driver death other than a crash. This tragic incident in Tennessee has shocked the entire country. This is a wonderful rural community where crime is unheard of."

Dick Fischer, president of Trans-Consult and founder of School Bus Safety Week in 1963, said he believes Gregory was the second driver shot on the school bus in the past decade, but the first one killed.

School Bus Violence Skyrockets

Interestingly enough, the incident came on the heels of a new study released by the National Association of School Resource Officers that shows a 35 percent increase in school bus violence in 2004. Conversely, fewer than 13 percent of school resource officers reported that violent incidents on the school bus decreased.

NASRO also reports that nearly eight of 10 school-based police officers confiscated some kind of weapon from students on school property, including school buses, last year. The survey of over 750 school officers was conducted last summer at the association's summer conference in Phoenix.

A national safety consultant said underlying issue is that many transportation departments and drivers lack the necessary tools for dealing with emergency incidents.

"The fact is, over 65 percent (of respondents) said that transportation personnel have not received training on security issues," said Kenneth Stump, president of Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services. "Our school transportation personnel, like many other school support service personnel, are last on the list to receive training. If you have a major crisis in your school and need to evacuate, the first call is to mobilize transportation to evacuate schools. Drivers are an integral part of that."

As a result, school districts and specifically transportation departments are behind the proverbial eight-ball in being readily able to identify and manage a full-scale terrorist attack. The NASRO study shows that 92 percent of its members believe schools are "soft targets" for acts of terrorism.

Source: School Transportation News, April 2005. All rights reserved.