![]() ![]() Now, she'll spend the next 12 weekends in jail on her guilty plea to 37 counts of child endangerment and driving while intoxicated.Īllegany County Assistant District Attorney Michael Finn said, "I think this was a just and appropriate outcome in this case. Thompson hollers, "You can't get off the bus!" "You're backing into the freaking ditch, you're making the little kids cry.Stop!" screams another student.įinally, the children opened the emergency door in the back of the bus to get out, despite Thompson pleading against it. The bus hit high speeds, ran over a mailbox, and started rolling backwards downhill.Ī student shouts, "Turn the bus off!" "No," says Thompson. To which a student replies, "Well, you're not okay and I know it." In the video, you can hear Thompson say, "Will you guys stop?" At the time, she thought the children were overreacting. 55-year-old Martha Thompson had a blood alcohol content of. This is surveillance video of the dangerous school bus ride last May in the Alfred-Almond school district in Allegany County. One student on the video screamed, "Put on the brake!" Now she's going to spend a lot of weekends in jail. (WIVB) - She was drunk behind the wheel with more than three dozen kids aboard her school bus. Parker said no grand jury presentation date has been set.ATTENTION: CBS covered this story and interviewed two of the kids on the bus HERE: ĪLFRED, N.Y. Thompson’s blood test results have not come back. ![]() She said Thompson’s lawyer called her prior to her Tuesday night court date and asked for a two-week delay in the completion of her arraignment because Thompson is in the process of completing town assessor work.īarron said she is not sure whether Thompson’s license has been taken yet, but would have seized it Tuesday had she appeared. “I let her lawyer know that there may be a conflict of interest here,” said Barron. ![]() Parker said Assistant District Attorney Michael Finn will be handling the case for the county.Įven if the DWI charge was not upgraded to a felony, the case would have likely moved out of West Almond town court.īarron is employed by the Alfred Almond Central School District as a fifth and sixth grade teacher’s aide. Thompson is being represented by the Buffalo-area law office of Thomas Trbovich, a firm that specializes in DWI defense. “My understanding is that it would be highly unlikely that she would ever get a job as a school bus driver,” said Parker If Thompson is convicted of felony DWI it will likely end her career as a bus driver. “That’s what should have been done in the first place, but the troopers gave her the misdemeanor charge,” said Allegany County District Attorney Terry Parker of the new development. Students exited the bus from an emergency door after Thompson allegedly got her bus stuck on the side of South Road in the Town of West Almond. “It has been upgraded to a felony charge because it was a school bus with school age passengers involved and it has to be upgraded to felony DWI according to vehicle and traffic laws,” said West Almond town Judge Gail Barron Tuesday.Īmity-based state police charged Thompson, 55, of 5 Maple Ridge, Almond, May 8 with driving while intoxicated and 15 counts of endangering the welfare of a child and 15 counts of second-degree reckless endangerment after she was stopped by Alfred police on Glen Street in the Village of Alfred after reports from students and a resident that she was intoxicated. Martha Thompson- the Alfred-Almond Central School District bus driver suspended without pay - is now facing a felony driving while intoxicated charge after the Allegany County Court system has reviewed the circumstances of the incident that led to her arrest. ![]()
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