Employees of the Wal-Mart at
“It was just odd the way they were driving it,” said Roy Hoover, a Wal-Mart employee. “He was having a hard time parking it, like he’d never drove one before.”
When the deputy pulled behind bus 746 with his emergency lights on, young driver Michael Wade Propst stepped out. He initially said a man named “
Deputies later discovered the school bus had been taken overnight from a residence at
No disciplinary action was taken against the bus driver Tuesday, but Superintendent of Schools Bill Husfelt said he plans to meet with the bus driver today.
Deputies contacted the child’s mother, who asked deputies to talk to him “since she was not having any impact on him,” an incident report said.
The bus had not been reported stolen.
From the on-board camera footage, Propst seemed like a skilled driver, according to
“You have to take a weeklong course to operate a bus like that,” Jones said. “Yet at 12 he was able to drive one, and he didn’t just take it around the block.”
Propst made the 14-mile trek, which wends along U.S. Business 98 and over the
He has been charged with grand theft of an item worth more than $100,000 and felony criminal mischief. He also is charged with grand theft for a missing student recognition device worth about $2,000, and officers could be looking into other charges against the juvenile.
Though Propst told deputies he did not remember hitting anything, BCSO is investigating an 8-foot-long scrape of white paint transferred onto the right side of the bus.
“We don’t know if that occurred before he got the bus, but there’s a potential he ran into something white,” said Major Tommy Ford of BCSO.
BCSO officials were unsure of the paint’s origin as of Tuesday evening.
Propst was arrested and taken to the Department of Juvenile Justice for processing.