Two arrested for trespassing on city school bus

Two Enterprise women are free on bond after being arrested for an incident on an Enterprise City School Bus that occurred early Wednesday, Aug. 23.

The women are both free on $500 bond after their arrest by Enterprise Police in connection with the incident that involved children on a city school bus.

Both women are charged with trespassing on a school bus, a misdemeanor offense. It is a policy of The Southeast Sun not to print names of those charged with misdemeanor offenses.

The incident occurred in the area of Shellfield Road and Oakridge Circle in Enterprise at approximately 6:55 a.m.

One woman arrested is 38 years old. The other woman arrested is 35 years old, according to the Enterprise Police Department arrest report.

Both women are charged with allegedly violating the Charles Poland Act, which was signed into law in 2013 as a means of protecting Alabama’s students and bus drivers.

The law, named after Midland City Bus Driver Charles “Chuck” Poland, specifically makes trespassing on a yellow school bus a class-A misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail.

The Charles “Chuck” Poland Jr. Act addresses the issue of trespassing on an Alabama school bus and helps school systems protect students and school bus drivers by vigorously prosecuting persons who do so.

The Dale County Schools bus driver was shot and killed by a gunman who boarded his bus and demanded two students. Before being shot, Poland negotiated with Jimmy Lee Dykes and blocked his path, enabling 21 children to escape through the emergency exit. After killing Poland, Dykes abducted a 5-year-old boy with autism and held him hostage in an underground bunker for nearly a week before FBI agents burst in, killed him and rescued the boy.

Under the law, the crime of trespass in the first degree includes intentionally stopping, impeding, delaying or detaining any school bus from being operated for public school purposes “with the intent to commit a crime.”

“Student safety is extremely important to us,” said Enterprise City Schools Superintendent Greg Faught. “We will continue to take every measure possible to help ensure that our students are transported to and from school safely each day.

“It is not ‘okay’ for an uninvited individual to step onto a school bus,” Faught said. “Our school system has people and processes in place to address legitimate parental concerns in a civil manner.

“Those who choose to ignore this law,” Faught stressed, “will have a warrant signed for their arrest every time.”

According to the law, perpetrators will also be prosecuted in the first degree if they are found guilty of entering a public school bus while the door is open to load or unload students without lawful purpose while at a railroad grade crossing or after being forbidden from doing so by the bus driver or other authorized school official; refusing to depart the school bus after the bus driver in charge or other school official demands this of said occupant; or intentionally destroying, defacing, burning or damaging any public school bus.