Police: School bus driver drove drunk to student's house

WATERTOWN, Mass. (WHDH) -- A school bus driver has been charged with kidnapping and driving under the influence after he was supposed to drive a student home, but dropped him off nearly three hours late Wednesday afternoon.

A bus driver from the Ride Rite-Medi Van company of Leominster transporting a student to his home on Forest Avenue in Clinton was arrested on charges of drunk driving and kidnapping Thursday.

School officials said the 41-year-old driver isn't a Perkins employee and nothing seemed unusual when he picked the boy up on Wednesday afternoon.

When he was more than an hour and a half late, the boy’s panicked parents called police. At one point, officers reached the driver on his cellphone but he quickly hung up.

Investigators said he pulled up to the boy’s house nearly three hours overdue. The student wasn’t hurt -- but the bus driver was arrested.

“Every possible system is in place to ensure the absolute security, safety, good health of all of our students,” said Marilyn Rea Beyer, spokesperson for Perkins School for the Blind.

Bus company executives told 7News off camera the driver who was hired eight weeks ago has been fired in the wake of the allegations.

The bus driver’s father said his son has had problems in the past but is no monster.

“He said to me that he was in traffic [for two hours] and that the traffic was very heavy and that it delayed him,” the bus driver’s father said.

According to the police report, investigators still don’t know where the bus driver was for nearly three hours.

The bus driver was behind bars Thursday night and is due in court next month.