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An armed U.S. Army trainee hijacked a school bus in South Carolina before setting the kids and driver free.
The terrifying incident took place Thursday morning when 23-year-old New Jersey native Jovan Collazo left the Fort Jackson base with a rifle at around 7 a.m. The deranged man tried flagging down motorists on Interstate 77 before approaching a school bus stop. Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said that Collazo “told the bus driver that he didn’t want to hurt him, but he wanted him to drive him to the next town.” The bus was en route to Forest Lake Elementary School in Columbia.
Once on the bus, the suspect ordered all 18 of the children to the front. The kids then began “asking lots of questions to the suspect, if he was going to hurt them or the bus driver,” Lott revealed. Collazo, who was still wearing his Army physical training gear, became “frustrated” with the questions. Eventually, he forced the kids and the driver off the bus and then drove it a short way before ditching the bus and weapon. He was captured by police soon after.
Brig. Gen. Milford Beagle Jr., the Fort Jackson base commander, does not believe that the man wanted to harm anyone. Instead, he feels that Collazo, who was in this third week of a 10-week basic combat training, was homesick, and that led to his actions.
“There is nothing that leads us to believe — through his counseling, through anything in his screening records coming in — that this had anything to do with harming others, harming himself,” Beagle said.
Lott credits the bus operator with remaining calm and keeping the situation from escalating.
“He kept his cool. He didn’t overreact. He didn’t get excited. He kept his cool enough that kept the situation calm. And I will tell you his main concern was the safety of those kids.”
Collazo is expected to be charged with several counts of kidnapping and faces military punishment for removing the rifle and being absent without leave.
