Gunshot Hits Bus Carrying 14 Kids / Richmond Preschoolers Unhurt in the Crossfire of a Shootout Between Cars
By JIM NOLAN
A bus taking 14 preschoolers home was caught in the crossfire of a rolling shootout at a North Richmond intersection yesterday afternoon.
No one on the bus was injured as driver Arlene Smyre maneuvered Bus 189 through the volley of gunfire at East Ladies Mile Road and Hazelhurst Avenue. She stopped several blocks away on Donnan Street with a busload of frightened children and a penny-sized bullet hole in the yellow, metal skin covering a control panel just below the driver’s seat.
Smyre “got out of the bus, and she was shaking,” said a woman whose daughter Smyre safely delivered to her North Richmond doorstep moments after the 3:10 p.m. shooting. “The bus monitor was shaking.”
At 3:45 p.m., Richmond police received a report from VCU Medical Center that a male had arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound, police said in a news release. His injury was described as non-life- threatening. Police said an investigation revealed that the male was shot on Ladies Mile Road during an argument and taken to the hospital in a personal vehicle.
The children on the bus were 3 and 4 years old. They had spent the day at a Head Start program run by the city school system at the North Richmond YMCA Community Center on Old Brook Road. They were on their way home when the gunfire erupted.
School system spokeswoman Felicia Cosby said that as the bus rolled up to the intersection, the driver heard tires squealing and saw occupants of two cars shooting at each other.
Smyre tried to pull over and angle the bus to avoid the gunfire, Cosby said, but she couldn’t immediately go through the intersection for fear of being struck by oncoming traffic.
The bus driver and the bus monitor told the children to get down, she said.
The woman whose daughter was on the bus said her child unbuckled her seat belt so she could sink even lower into her seat.
Another woman who lives on Donnan Street said she heard at least five shots.
“Just pop! Pop, pop! Pop, pop!” recalled the woman, who, like her neighbor, did not want to be identified.
After arriving on Donnan Street, school officials arranged for the rest of the children to be picked up or taken home.
Residents said shots are not uncommon at night near the intersection, the location of the Town Market grocery store. Rarely, however, have they heard gunfire in the middle of the day.
“The kids were shaken up,” Cosby said. “They were in the line of fire. We’re just very thankful none of the students were harmed and very thankful the bus driver was not harmed.”
Police last night were looking for the driver of a teal green Honda Accord that was observed leaving the scene. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000.
Contact Jim Nolan at (804) 649-6061 or jnolan@timesdispatch.com.
Staff writer Olympia Meola contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: MAP
MEMO: State Edition story, page B-2, also in Merlin
Originally published by Times-Dispatch Staff Writer.
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