Four teenagers were arrested Tuesday night and charged with bias intimidation of their bus driver after praising the Ku Klux Klan during the ride home from school, township police confirmed.
The four boys, all about 15 years old, are accused of crowding behind their black female school bus driver after she objected to their conversation, during which they used racial slurs about the KKK’s violence against blacks, Lt. Paul Daly of the Lakewood police said.
“They stood behind her instead of being seated,” Daly said Thursday. “She felt intimidated.”
They boys were arrested on the bus and released later into the custody of their parents.
The driver, 49-year-old Sharon Peters, declined to comment Thursday night. Peters returned phone calls after she was asked to leave a meeting of public school officials called to discuss what happened on her bus.
The township Board of Education is responsible for the transportation of all public and private school students in Lakewood.
The township school superintendent and other school officials met with Peters Thursday evening, Michael Inzelbuch, the school district attorney, confirmed. A bus company official and the company’s attorney also were present, Inzelbuch said.
“We find these to be very serious allegations,” Inzelbuch said late Thursday night. “They will need to be reviewed to the full extent of the law.”
Peters drives a bus for Klarr Transportation Services of Lakewood.
Daly did not know what school the boys attended, but Klarr transports students for some of the private schools throughout Lakewood, Daly said. Inzelbuch declined to identify the school.
When reached by phone Thursday, Klarr officials declined to comment.
School officials will consider installing cameras on Peters’ school bus and changing her route and the students she transports, Inzelbuch said.
During the meeting Thursday night, officials for the unidentified private school that the boys attend assured the township Board of Education that appropriate disciplinary action will be taken if the allegations are proved to be true, Inzelbuch said.
Those private school officials said they have complained about Peters’ job performance in the past, Inzelbuch said. The complaints span the past two years, and were made prior to the Tuesday night arrest of the boys, Inzelbuch said. However, public school officials were not aware of the complaints before Thursday night, Inzelbuch said.
Now, the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is planning to get involved, according to chapter President James Waters.
“I’m outraged and I would be outraged if the situation was reversed,” Waters said. “This situation is wrong, and she did not need to treated like that.”
Waters plans to reach out to rabbinical leaders throughout the Orthodox Jewish community. He said he wants to help develop tolerance and diversity programs within Lakewood’s extensive private school system with the help of the rabbis.
(Source: APP)
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10 Responses
He’s “outraged”… and he wants to reach out… to develop tolerance programs. Huh?
If the situation was reversed, Waters would say it’s rediculous to accuse a black woman of using racial slurs of the KKK. And to think Jews were provoking an incident with KKK type slurs is just as far-fetched. Sounds like she jumped on the racism bandwagon because of the complaints lodged against her in the past.
IF these allegations are true,
and IF these were Yeshiva boys,
then this is a terrible chilul HaSh-m,
and (whoever they are) these boys need some serious disciplining.
On the surface of it though, I have to say that
I would be very surprised if most 15 year old
Lakewood yeshiva boys even know what the KKK is!
I don’t get it where the boys jewish or not?
I don’t understand-the boys are Jewish?? I hope not,that would be a tremendous chilul hashem. I know that we teach our children that we are the Am Hanivchar, and that we are held to a higher standard,but for boys to go around flaunting that whites are better then blacks?? In front of a black person?. Where is the common sense,where is the decency. We are all in title to our opinions, but please,not everything someone thinks has to be said. Even as a joke. Really now…a little sechel….
Whatever was said, right or wrong, I doubt the driver was intended to hear it. She was butting in to the students’ private discussions.
As in every story put to print, this story is an only partially true. No boys were arrested. No one was charged.
An anti semitic bus driver, who in notorious for telling boys such things a “Hitler was right” or going over to an overweight boy and telling him, “you are nothing but a fatso” has now extended her hatred.
On this particular run, the driver took a different route, he forced boys to exit from the bus more than a mile from their stop. She was angry at the last boys on the bus for not listening to her and getting off 3/4 of a mile from their home, so she called the police and made up a story.
Today the driver is being charged with kidnapping, endangering the welfare of minors, recklass endangerment, Bias crimes, etc.
The bus company and the Board of Education that have been aware of the bus drivers behavior for the past years and have never done anything about it, and continued to let her drive, are being named in aseperate law suit.
I wonder! If these are Yeshiva boys, do they even know what the KKK is? I know that the Yeshiva boys in my family don’t….and they’re 17 and 16 yrs. old!! I’d want to be sure she’s not making this up!!!
I believe you rikki – I had to teach fundementals of current American history to my youngest (now 23) – her Yeshivas taught her gournisht
I’m not accusing anyone, but no bus driver should be subjected to bigotry or intimidation, anytime.