An army trainee was arrested after allegedly hijacking a school bus full of children with a rifle, according to CNN.
A Fort Jackson army recruit has been detained after allegedly attempting to gain control of a school bus on its way to Forest Lake Elementary School in Columbia, South Carolina, CNN reported.
SCARY MOMENTS: Surveillance video captures the terrifying moments an armed solider-in-training hijacked a school bus full of children in Richland County, SC (SOUND ON). Here’s what happened >> https://t.co/vTQbc2tI6p pic.twitter.com/xqur3n8Mwh
— WIS News 10 (@wis10) May 7, 2021
The incident began when the 23-year-old suspect, Jovan Collazo, allegedly hopped a barbed wire fence at around 7 in the morning, Leon Lott, the sheriff of Richland County, told reporters during a news conference Thursday.
An Army trainee has been arrested after authorities say he boarded a South Carolina school bus with a gun and held the driver and elementary school students hostage before letting them off the bus. https://t.co/qpsyQCU1mK
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 6, 2021
Collazo allegedly got onto a school bus and told the bus driver that, “he didn’t want to hurt him, but he wanted him to drive him to the next town,” Lott said.
The children on the bus allegedly asked the 23-year-old if he was going to hurt them or the bus driver, ABC News reported.
“Probably one of the scariest calls we can get in law enforcement, and as a school district, is that a school bus has been hijacked with kids on it with someone with a gun. And that’s what we had this morning,” Lott said.
Jovan Collazo let everyone off the bus before being arrested shortly after.
Lott confirmed that both the bus driver and all 18 children were unharmed after the incident. (RELATED: Shooter Opens Fire Near US Army Base, According To Multiple Reports)
Fort Jackson’s Commander Brigadier General Milford H. Beagle Jr. told reporters that the 23-year-old recruit’s rifle was unloaded, as the recruit would not have had access to any ammunition due to him being in his third week of training, according to ABC news.
Fort Jackson officials issued an apology, saying, “this was a failure in our accountability procedures that we truly regret and are apologetic to our community.”
Lott commended the bus driver for remaining calm. “His main concern was the safety of those kids and he did his job,” Lott said.