GREEN COVE SPRINGS, Fla. — Two Clay County school buses were shot with a BB gun this morning — one of the shots shattered a window, while each bus had a student on board.
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Now, guardians like Rodney Mckenzie are questioning the safety of school buses — and asking why someone would do this.
Rodney Mckenzie spends every day with his granddaughter Lana. He says that after seeing the shattered windows, he may rethink his plans to send her on the bus when she starts school next year.
“Well, it makes you think you don’t want to put your kids on a school bus.”
“I’ll be driving her to school. Oh yeah. You can’t, you can’t do that stuff.”
Two buses were shot with a BB gun on Henley Road near Winn-Dixie around 5:45 this morning. Both buses had a driver, attendant, and one student on board.
“Why? Why is this happening? Why would somebody do something that bad? For no reason. I mean, there can’t be a reason for shooting a school bus,” Mckenzie said.
Once shot, the buses pulled over. A parent came to pick up one child, while a police chief took the other. No one was injured. One woman hearing about the shooting was appalled.
“I just couldn’t believe it. It’s like, where can you be safe anymore these days?” Shirley Wood asked.
The Clay County sheriff’s office has taken over the investigation as the shooting did not happen on campus. Sheriff’s deputies are still looking for the shooter, who could face serious charges.
“If you can’t be safe riding on a school bus? On your way to or from school? I don’t know. It says a lot about kids these days or whoever did that.”
Action News Jax law and safety expert Dale Carson has decades of law enforcement experience. He says the shooting will be investigated as any other shooting because today’s BB guns are so powerful.
“They are very powerful and they can easily penetrate the skin in a way that would indicate that it is an actual firearm,” Carson says.
The Clay County sheriff’s office released a statement explaining the shooter could face up to 15 years in prison:
Tuesday morning, September 21, two of our Clay County school buses were shot with a BB gun while enroute to pick up students for school. The criminal act of shooting a BB gun at a school bus in transit is a serious offense. The perpetrators could be charged with Shooting Into an Occupied Vehicle, a 2nd-degree felony offense, and could bring a maximum 15-year sentence in prison under Florida law. Additionally, it is illegal for a minor to possess a BB gun without adult supervision.
Carson explained multiple details of the investigation could influence the charges.
“Depending on the intent of the shooter, that will determine whether or not there was some sort of intent to actually harm somebody.”
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This isn’t the first time this has happened in northeast Florida — Action News Jax has reported at least three other BB gun/school bus-related shootings in the last five years.
“Shooting it at a bus, full of children or not, is a criminal felony event,” Carson says.
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