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Background: The intersection of East Hills Drive and Wilner Drive in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Google Maps). Inset: A person alleged to be Tanelle Day attacking a school bus driver (WPXI).
A woman from Pennsylvania faces serious charges after allegedly assaulting a school bus driver for being five minutes late to a bus stop, according to authorities.
Identified as Tanelle Day, 31, she has been charged with aggravated assault, disorderly conduct, and unauthorized entry onto a school bus, as indicated by court documents reviewed by Law&Crime. The alleged incident took place on January 15.
On that snowy morning, bus driver Shayla Harris was on her route for Propel Braddock Hills, picking up students, reported Pittsburgh’s NBC affiliate WPXI. When the bus stopped at the intersection of East Hills Drive and Wilner Drive, Day reportedly forced open the bus doors, spilled her coffee, and launched an assault on the driver.
Surveillance video from inside the bus, obtained by the local news outlet, shows Day confronting the driver, swatting away Harris’s arm as she attempts to protect herself. The footage reveals Day striking Harris repeatedly with one hand while gripping the driver’s hair with the other.
“It’s the everyday life of a bus driver,” Harris expressed to the station. “Parents are just crazy.”
Day reportedly made her reasoning for the attack clear. “She said I had her baby standing out in the cold,” Harris said, adding that as she saw the suspect ripping the doors open, she “was struggling to pull the brake” to stop the bus.
“What was going through my mind was to secure the bus, so that we didn’t drive into anything… to get her off the bus,” Harris told WPXI. “Everybody could have lost their lives that day because I was 5 minutes late. Very traumatizing. Most of the parents I’ve spoken with were very upset that this happened.”
In the video, a small figure wearing a pink backpack and whose face is blurred can be seen walking on the bus at the same time as the suspect, suggesting Day’s daughter witnessed the attack. Other children were apparently on board, including Harris’ son, who woke up from a nap to hear his mother’s screams, jumped on the suspect’s back and, with the help of two adults, got her off the bus.
Harris was reportedly treated for a concussion at a nearby hospital. She took a week to recover and was placed on a different bus route. Court records do not list an arrest date for Day, though a criminal complaint was filed against her on Monday.
Propel Braddock Hills is part of the Propel Schools network, which describes itself on its website as “a not-for-profit federation of charter schools dedicated to the mission of catalyzing the transformation of public education so that all children have access to high-performing public schools.”
Law&Crime reached out to Pittsburgh Public Schools for more information about the investigation.