A peaceful ending to a scary ordeal for a group of Dauphin County Vocational Technical students headed home to Susquehanna Township Monday afternoon.
Their bus driver Ronald Jones, 73, of Susquehanna Township, has been cited for disorderly conduct and fired from his job after witnesses said he got into an argument with a student on the bus and pulled out what looked like a gun.
“He said he was going to ‘shoot all of the bad kids, starting with you and you’ and pointed at the student he was arguing with and his friend,” said one student who was on the bus and did not want her name used.
After the argument, Jones continued his bus route. But students on the bus immediately got on their cell phones and contacted their parents and the school, unsure if the gun was real or fake.
“I believe the problems that arose were as the incident was transferred from one person to another,” said Lt. Gary Seefeldt of Lower Paxton Township police. “It became a real gun in the conversations.”
The gun turned out to be a fake miniature “Tommy” gun, but school leaders and police praised the students’ quick action.
“You can’t just assume that nothing is ever going to happen to you because things are just getting worse and worse and you just have to be ready for it,” added the student who took cell phone video of a police officer questioning Jones.