A Kentucky father caught on a viral video yelling at elementary-aged children on a school bus after his daughter was allegedly bullied has been charged with terroristic threatening, disorderly conduct and menacing.
According to WDRD, Delvantae King was reportedly arrested on Sept. 9, two weeks after he boarded a Carter Traditional Elementary School bus in Louisville, Kentucky, and threatened to flip it over.
“I’ma flip this entire bus with everybody on it, and I mean that. I mean that,” King yelled. “That go for everybody on here. Touch my daughter again, and I’ma flip this whole bus.”
King said his 9-year-old daughter had been bullied for months, and he was fed up because she came home with a lump on her head after being jumped the day before. The enraged father said he had spoken to school officials and the bully’s parents to no avail. He issued a public apology, saying that he regretted his overreaction days later.
“I let my emotions and my frustration and anger get the best of me,” he said. “The only reason any of this transpired is due to bullying. And people don’t talk to their kids about bullying. And when you done reached out and keep trying and trying and trying to mediate something, and nobody’s doing nothing, what else are you left to do?”
The mother of the girl, who is accused of assaulting King’s daughter, says her child has been mislabeled as a bully.
“She’s out here viral as a bully,” Angel Clay said. “My daughter’s not a bully, and I’m here to clear her name.”
Clay and her partner, Lennard Erving, also refute King’s claims that he spoke to them about the issues between the two children.
“This is his first appearance to the table, and this is the way he made his appearance,” Erving said. “He’s not a concerned father. He hasn’t been to that school, checking on anything. No one at that school knows this man. This is the way he made his entrance.”
In the video viewed by thousands on social media, King first appears to address a girl on the bus before he extends his threats to the other children.
“Ima say this one time, B———h, you touch my daughter again, you gon’ have to get get your momma, your daddy, your uncle or whoever. And that go to whoever is on here,” King said.
Clay said she was “disgusted” with King’s behavior, which left her 10-year-old daughter, Alasia Smith, terrified.
“My blood was boiling. I don’t stand for a whole lot, but respect is on the top of the list. And he got on the bus, launching and going to my child, calling her names that no man should ever call a woman, let alone a child,” Clay said. “So, I felt the pain, seen the pain in my daughter’s face. She was scared.”
Clay told WAVE News that she knows her daughter is not totally innocent but maintained she is not a bully, showing videos to reporters of other students approaching her daughter.
“I’m not saying she’s never been in ISAP (In-School Adjustment Program) or never been to the principal,” Clay said. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. She’s going to be held accountable. My daughter knows her mother doesn’t play that. Has she probably ever… you know, no. But she’s not a bully, and she ain’t never bullied them two little girls that live down the street and go to the school with her.”
Clay’s daughter, Alasia, believes King owes her a personal apology.
“He never once said I apologize to the kid that he used all that profanity towards,” Clay’s daughter Alasia Smith said. “If you were supposed to make a public apology, why wasn’t I included in that? Because, the way that he approached me and you were talking to me out of my name. No one’s talked to me like that, and for a man that I don’t even know to talk to me like that is just… you don’t have that right to talk to me like that.”
