An Oklahoma man is facing charges after deputies say he drove his car toward a Black girl and her siblings as they got off the school bus Wednesday.
The frightening incident unfolded at a school bus stop near Meridian where witness Michael Jackson was waiting to pick up his children, station KFOR-TV reported. That’s when suspect Dale Trent Jr. pulled up and parked behind him.
As the victims, a 14-year-old girl and her siblings got off the bus and began loading into their car, Jackson said Trent leaped into action, driving his pick-up truck straight at them.
“He was parked at an angle behind mine and when he came, his angle shot him straight towards them,” Jackson told the station.
Trent narrowly missed the teen by less than 10 feet, an affidavit revealed. Witnesses said he also shouted racial slurs at the children and threatened to kill them. Jackson said he is unsure if the man was actually trying to harm the siblings but said his actions were reckless either way.
“He was deliberately trying to scare her,” Jackson said. “Was he going to hit them? I don’t think so, but when you’re spinning on gravel like that, you don’t have that much control.”
“If there’s problems or problems on the bus, you talk,” he added. “You don’t peel out and scare kids, and you don’t confront a young kid.
Speaking to KFOR, Trent said he was only defending his daughter, who said she was being bullied by the 14-year-old. He said he drove over to another bus stop to pick up a friend’s children when his daughter pointed out her alleged bully.
“My child goes, ‘There she is daddy,’ and I asked [the girl] ‘Why do you keep picking on my child?'” Trent said, denying he ever used a racial slur. “And she wouldn’t answer me. I said, ‘You need to keep your hands off my child.'”
Trent has since been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.
