With my high school finally having given me my transcripts and the college application process getting underway at long last, I’ve been thinking about the other careers that I was once sure that I’d pursue. One of the things that I wanted to be for a long time was a judge, and though I’m certain I’d be happier as a successful graphic designer, a tiny part of me still wants to go that route instead.

That’s probably part of why I’m so interested in a video that made it onto Digg recently that shows a rather unpleasant altercation on a school bus involving a teenage student and the driver. Cases where an authority is allowed to take away a right that a person normally has (such as the right to get off a bus) are very interesting to me since I have the overall view that basically says, “The law is meant to make it so that ‘your rights stop where my rights start’, to give certain legal advantages to the people when dealing with the government, and to keep the government accountable and severely in check.”

And I’m probably more interested even than I’d normally be in this video because I can definitely see self-defense claims being made, which is pretty much a sure way to get my attention since I practice karate (which makes self-defense matters interesting and relevant by default) and have actually gotten in trouble at school once for successfully protecting myself, but that’s a different fun story.

So with that little background given, here’s the video before I go further. It’s about ten minutes long, but I’ve already watched it a couple times and have played back snippits of it endlessly. It pretty much shows the whole thing from the start to the end, with the “biggest tussle” being about eight minutes in or so. I found the whole thing fascinating, like I said.

Just for flavor and to add some entertainment value, I’m going to show you what I think about this in a dialog format between “Real James” and “Judge James.” Imagine the regular James you know sitting in a chair next to another James, who is wearing the traditional black robes of a judge on some show like Hardball or Meet The Press.

Ready, set, action!

Real James: First off, I think we all agree that the student girl was outrageous. Maybe she’s a more attractive person normally, but what I saw wasn’t exactly hot stuff.

Judge James: I can’t let personal opinions like that effect my rulings, but yes, her immaturity is self-evident. I think she’s living evidence of why you’re a minor until you’re at least eighteen.

Real James: We don’t actually know for sure if she’s eighteen.

Judge James: She doesn’t look or act that old to me. I’m going to assume she’s not eighteen.

Real James: Always the safer assumption.

Judge James: Stephanie would call you a “creepster” for that joke, you know. And since when do you make jokes like that anyway?

Real James: Enough about the younger girl, Judge. Didn’t you feel terrible for the bus driver? I mean, not just for having to put up with a brat like that, but at the very end when it looks like she’s fallen down and is just pitifully asking the radio where her help was, didn’t you just want to jump into the video and hug her?

Judge James: Sure, but that’s personal opinion as well, and as a Judge, I need to be as objective as possible. Now, what are the likely accusations against the bus driver here?

Real James: The brat effectively accuses the bus driver of assault and battery, and though she does not actually accuse her of theft when she takes away her cell phone, somehow I get the feeling that she’s the kind of person that would say that.

Judge James: Right. Now, as you know, “assault” refers to threats and attempts to strike, while “battery” refers to actually having struck. This is important because you need to have somebody “assault” you before you can do anything in “self-defense” against them. Even though the video does seem to show the bus driver touching the student first, it also seems to me that the student physically made the first move, moving toward her somewhat aggressively as if to bull rush (or “bull fast-walk” in this case) right through her.

Real James: Also, looking at the video, it’s hard to tell, but it looks a little bit like the girl suddenly throws her hands up really suddenly a moment before the bus driver puts her hands on the girl to push her back, while saying something like “You better not touch me!”

Judge James: Correct. So basically, the self-defense argument hinges on the assumption that the aggressive approach of the girl was a reasonably conceived “assault” in the legal sense.

Real James: So now, how does self-defense work when students are involved?

Judge James: Obviously people like teachers and bus drivers are strictly not allowed to do anything to their wards. It’s a risk for them to ever touch the students. However, I’m pretty sure that this does not mean they have to just let themselves get beat up by an angry student. If the student is acting in such a way that physical contact is unavoidable, such as when the student is trying to hit or “bull fast-walk” into the teacher, the teacher is at least allowed to try to stop the student and shield themselves, but the use of force should definitely be absolutely minimal here.

Real James: Judge, just look at that bus driver. She’s tiny and old, and the student is young and apparently healthy and even somewhat muscular. Well, I wouldn’t really call her muscular, but compared to the bus driver she certainly was. Later on, the girl seems to smother her even! Anyway, when she’s pushing her away in the beginning, how is that not minimal force? The girl didn’t even whimper or anything, and the other kids clearly didn’t think it was enough to warrant stepping in.

Judge James: Agreed. So when the girl first makes the accusation of assault and battery by declaring that she would sue the bus driver for touching her, I feel that she has a pretty weak case.

Real James: How about later, when the bus driver’s daughter comes and starts to fight the girl, pulling her hair and apparently punching her to get her off her mother? If the bus driver is in the clear, what about her daughter? If that brat (sloppily) tackled my mother like that, I’d get up and pummel her for as long as it took to get her off too! And she was clearly stating both why she was getting involved and the condition for her stopping by saying, “Get off my mother!” over and over. I just don’t blame her at all!

Judge James: Don’t worry. Fortunately, “self-defense” in the legal sense not only covers protecting yourself, but also works for protecting your family. Maybe the girl did not use the absolute minimum amount of force, but there actually isn’t any official, objective scale for determining that anyway. In theory, the girl could have used a baseball bat to get the girl off of her mother, as long as she did not continue to beat her or chase her down after she got her off.

Real James: Good. She should’ve. Well, not really. But I’m relieved that it works like that.

Judge James: Indeed.

Real James: I’m a little bit worried though. See, I feel like the bus driver did everything right, really. I mean, the manner in which she confiscated the cell phone was a bit questionable, but technically the girl offered her the phone anyway to talk to her mother, so actually, I think I’ll be a smartass and defend that too since I really don’t feel like the bus driver deserves to get in trouble at all in this case. But others might not feel like I do, and you can clearly hear one of the other students on the bus near the end talking on his own cell phone saying, “Oh my god, the bus driver freaked out and punched a girl!” Since the worst of it was just a little bit off the screen since the girl bowled into the bus driver and pusher her in the corner, will the rely on people like that kid to say what happened?

Judge James: I think any competent lawyer could prove that not only are those witnesses not terribly credible, but also that none of them had line of sight. Regardless, it’s true that we never really see a punching motion, but we do see the girl shove and smother the bus driver, so if the bus driver made a punching motion to the girl’s stomach to get her off (if her arms were caught in front of her) or if the bus driver banged on her back with her fists (if her arms ended up wrapped around her, like in a messy grapple), then that would be a pretty easy case for “self-defense.”

Real James: What about the people who are saying that the bus driver is at fault for not just ending the situation before it even started by letting the girl out when she asked to get off?

Judge James: School bus drivers can’t legally do that, actually. The girl and her parents would have had to sign a document that explained how students can only be let out at the designated bus stops (except in emergencies), and that the bus drivers are legally responsible for them until then. Parents can actually sue school bus drivers if this isn’t adhered to, and you can search the internet for countless legal cases when something happened to a student who was prematurely released by a bus driver. In fact, the bus driver can go to jail potentially. They really just aren’t allowed to let the students go. In an issue like this where there’s no emergency, the bus driver did the right think by just blocking the students way and guarding the “space behind the line on the floor” (which actually exist in school buses for this reason) so that the girl couldn’t press the button to open the door.

Real James: I heard some guy say that it was kidnapping and illegal imprisonment. He seemed a little bit silly.

Judge James: That’s because he was silly. Probably misinformed, too. Not everybody knows or understands how school bus drivers just aren’t allowed to let the kids off anywhere.

Real James: I totally agree with all this, but couldn’t somebody argue that it became an emergency for the other students when the bus driver was attacked?

Judge James: Well, temper tantrums and disciplinary issues like that aren’t really the intention of the word “emergency” in my opinion, but I could see a legitimate argument formed around that. But the other students eventually did just that, and it doesn’t really help the girl that caused it all. To be honest, I feel like all of the students should have remained on the bus until the help that was summoned arrived, but I suppose I would advise the school against actually punishing them.

Real James: I think that if I had been there, I would have been one of the kids who stayed behind to see if the bus driver was okay. I mean, really, I just feel bad for her like I said.

Judge James: Apparently, you’re one of few who would do that.

Real James: The ones who did it seemed more interested in playing teacher’s pet than actually helping the bus driver though, so I’d almost rather get them out of the way.

Judge James: You aren’t a paramedic or anything yourself.

Real James: That’s not the point. Anyway, they probably should have all stayed on the bus, but I can at least understand how it all led up to them deciding to crack open an emergency exit.

Judge James: They should at least be firmly told to not leave the bus like that though, and given brief lecture as to why.

Real James: Sounds fine to me.

Judge James: In conclusion, I think there’s plenty of justifications for how the bus driver responded to the situation, and if the woman decided to press charges against the girl, I would not dismiss them from my court.

Real James: I just wish that any one of the laughing boys with dumb grins would’ve intervened instead of watching and giving each other high-fives. Or better yet, I wish the girl wasn’t such a brat in the first place.

Judge James: She should be ashamed, and her parents should not be proud of what we all saw.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am and is filed under Ridiculous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.