A bus driver in Bartow, Florida has been charged with false imprisonment, child abuse, and neglect after pulling over and encouraging two students to fight in her own front yard.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd probably said it best, when he expressed his disbelief to the local ABC affiliate:
"Girl what were you thinking?"
Patrice Sanders, 29, heard two girls arguing behind her as she drove the bus along, and decided that perhaps having the girls settle their differences in a physical manner, rather than a verbal one, was a bit better. This is all so insane, I'll let the Sheriff's Office just say what happened:
Sanders picked up kids from three Bartow schools – Gause Academy, Summerlin Academy, and Bartow High School – as part of her normal duties, but when she heard two young females, a 13-year-old and a 16-year-old, verbally arguing on the bus, she made the statement, “This is going to be handled today and they just need to fight.”
Sometimes when you gotta fight you gotta fight, I suppose.
Sanders then drove the school bus directly to her house located on Enterprise Drive in Lakeland – bypassing any and all stops she was supposed to make to let kids off the bus.
Sorry kids, you're not going home today, maybe tomorrow. We got a score to settle.
She ordered all of the children to get off of the bus, and told the two females – a 13-year-old Hispanic female and a 16-year-old black female – that she would give them Vaseline or baby oil to put on their faces so their faces wouldn’t get scratched during the fight.
If you're going to fight, you should probably get greased up first, right?
The 13-year-old told Sanders that she did not want to fight.
Too bad. Patrice Sanders has decided you're going to fight today, so you're going to fight. She's kind of like Dennis Hopper in Waterworld in that way.
Sanders went inside her house to try to find Vaseline or baby oil and couldn’t find any. The girls then physically fought in Sanders’ front yard, as witnessed by Sanders and all of the other children who had gotten off of the bus. At least one child videotaped the fight on a cell phone. Sanders did not try to stop the fight, but stood by and watched. The girls fought until they decided to quit. Sanders then ordered all of the kids back onto the bus.
Once the bus was back in motion, the same two girls began physically fighting again. Sanders pulled the bus over and watched them fight until they were done. She did not try to stop the fight. When they were done, she told all of the kids on the bus, “What happens on the bus, stays on the bus,” and then proceeded to take them all to their bus stops.
I'm honestly not sure what the worst part is here. Is it the vaseline? The fact that she insisted that any and all instances of World Championship Child Wrestling happened on her front lawn? The part where she ordered everyone off the bus so that they can watch? How about when she didn't try to stop it at all, and then pulled over a second time so it could happen again?
And then there's the Las Vegas attitude of "what happens on the bus, stays on the bus."
Vegas, baby. Vegas.