Dalton, Ga. police officers John Gurrieri and Steve Collins, really showed a bunch of middle schoolers who is boss last month when they boarded a school bus and cussed like sailors after the driver sought emergency help for the students’ unruly behavior.
After an investigation, the cops were suspended.
The incident occurred on the afternoon of Nov. 11, reports The Dalton Citizen. The obviously harried bus driver of the bus full of 30 to 50 Dalton Middle School students pulled over on a fairly busy street corner at 3:08 p.m. She then spent a good 15 minutes urging the kids to “stop hollering and screaming.”
This effort proved fruitless, so she called the bus dispatch office.
“They are just out of control,” she said. “Just go ahead and send the Dalton Police out here.”
Someone at the dispatch center then presumably called 911. Sometime later, Gurrieri and Collins showed up. Gurrieri got on the bus and dressed down the students.
“You have a bus driver calling the cops on a bunch of middle school kids,” he said, according to the Citizen. “Really? Come on. Who is being the biggest punk?”
Officer Gurrieri, then a veteran of the Dalton Police Department for over 13 months, next trained his wrath on one particular student. “Wipe the stupid smile off your face,” he said, before ordering the kid off the bus.
Collins, a seven-year veteran of the force, took the student off the bus and called him a “jackass.”
Meanwhile, Gurrieri raged on.
“You want to act like a bunch of hellions?” he asked. “She can’t (expletive) focus on what she’s doing. What if she flipped the bus over? Or hits somebody? You think it is (expletive) funny when you’re hurt or when someone else is hurt? What’s funny then?”
After complaining about having “to discipline you like you’re my children” and advising the middle schoolers that they are getting older and “about to put adult clothes on,” Gurrieri found another kid he didn’t like.
“I’ll give you a citation. I’ll do whatever I want, man,” he told the kid.
Gurrieri also threatened to send the students en masse in front of “the juvenile judge” who’s got no tolerance for this (expletive).”
After Gurrieri and Collins left the scene, the unidentified bus driver resumed her route. The students started chattering and laughing again.
“One day you’re going to learn that I mean business,” the angry driver told students, according to the Citizen. Then she yelled “Shut up!” a bunch of times and swore she’d call the cops again.
The kerfuffle resulted in two-day suspensions without pay for the foul-mouthed officers. They’ll also each complete 40 hours of community service and receive communications training. The police department found the behavior of Gurrieri and Collins “not acceptable” and “inconsistent with the department’s mission.”
The police department’s internal investigation began when a parent complained the evening after the incident.
School officials reviewed the video of the incident from the bus camera and concluded that the students didn’t do anything rising to the level of punishable behavior.
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