A Louisville, Kentucky, parent caught on video cursing and threatening a bus full of elementary students has issued a public apology and revealed the reason for the verbal outburst.
Delvantae King said his 9-year-old daughter, a student at Carter Traditional Elementary, has been bullied by another student for months, and his complaints about the abuse were ignored.
King said he let his emotions get to him after his daughter was jumped and came home with a lump on her head last Thursday.
“They’re down-tearing my character, making me seem like a monster that I’m not. I’m just a father that was worried about my child,” King told WAVE News Tuesday.
Cell phone video of the profane-laced confrontation made national headlines and rounds on social media. King was so enraged that another man had to hold him back. The children on the bus cried and screamed in the background. At one point in the video, a young girl went back and forth with the parent.
“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 on the bus on Friday, Aug. 26.
A girl who appears to be King’s daughter also had to be held back as she started to climb over seats to get to the back of the bus where the other girl in the confrontation was standing.
“She touched her! She touched her! She touched her,” another girl seated on the bus yelled.
“That go for every little motherf———er on here. I don’t give a f———k. You shouldn’t have touched her yesterday!” King yelled.
“I didn’t touch her,” the girl, who King appeared to address, yelled back.
The man accompanying King told the children to sit down.
“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.”
Younger children on the bus started to cry as King continued to scream.
“All that big bully sh——t y’all got going on. I’m not playing,” King said. “You might need to get your momma, your daddy, your uncle, whoever…”
“Oh my God,” cried a boy. “I wanna go home. I wanna go home.” He begged to go home six times while breaking down in tears.
The school’s principal sent an email to parents about the incident that evening.
“While at a bus stop, an adult and a girl boarded Bus #2047 threatening the students on the bus. The bus driver ushered the two non-Carter Elementary people off the bus but they got in a vehicle and followed the bus. Students reported seeing the occupants of the vehicle display a gun while following Bus #2047,” principal Jamie Wyman wrote.
“Police and JCPS Security were notified and the bus driver was told to return to our school and not make any more stops,” the email continued. “We had students wait on the bus until LMPD and JCPS Security arrived. They are investigating this incident.”
A mother whose child was on the bus said they were so traumatized by the incident she planned to keep her child home for a week.
“Oh my gosh,” the woman told reporters. “I was in tears because you can only, as a parent, you can’t get to that child at that point when you hear them crying. It just hurt a lot.”
King denies ever having a gun and also dismisses claims that he followed the bus.
“That is false. That is false,” he said.
King said he waited at the bus stop for his daughter with the intention of putting an end to the bullying. His daughter had been teased, attacked and had things thrown at her since spring, he said.
“I just feel like it’s just so much,” he said. “It is. It’s just too much. Like, I was even starting thinking about home-schooling my kids at this point. That’s not even fair for my child, for my kids, to even have do that.”
King said he complained to school staff and even tried to mediate the situation with the other child’s parents, but nothing worked.
“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?”
However, King says now he regrets how he responded.
“I wanted to clear up everything that was said and apologize to everybody that I offended, all the kids and parents,”King said. “I want to apologize to (Jefferson County Public Schools). I want to apologize to the school bus driver also because, at the end of the day, I did act out of character.”
