School bus driver takes a Taser away from 2 Beaufort County third graders, police say
Two Hilton Head Island School for the Creative Arts third graders were brought into the principal’s office on Sept. 23 after they were found toying with a Taser on the bus ride home from school, according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
Police were called to the school, located off of Hilton Head’s Gumtree Road on Bus Drive, around 3:16 p.m. after a district driver said that while dropping students off from school, they heard what sounded like a Taser go off in the back of the bus. The driver took the Taser from two third-graders, a boy and a girl and reported it to a school administrator, who called the police.
The girl told police she found the Taser on a school playground and thought it was a flashlight. She brought it on the bus and, once seated, handed it to the boy who pressed a button that made the weapon go off and caught the attention of the driver.
Per policy, the Beaufort County School District does not discuss disciplinary matters or active police investigations, Candace Bruder, a spokesperson, has previously told the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. Bruder also declined to discuss how the Taser ended up on the school playground.
This is the second incident involving the creative arts school in a week. On Sept. 19, an armed security guard left their weapon in a staff bathroom, which resulted in the school district canceling a nearly $1 million contract between the schools and S&S Management, the parent company doing business with the district as GuardOne Security. This was the second such incident after one of the company’s guards stationed at Mossy Oaks Elementary School also left their gun unattended in an unlocked staff bathroom earlier this year.
