School Bus Thefts Concern Houston Authorities
August 27, 2007 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Houston Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Division, the FBI and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office are all concerned about a large number of school buses that have been stolen in the Houston area over the last several months.
An 11 News investigation uncovered that 17 large, yellow school buses were stolen recently from various charter schools, business schools and private bus companies. Not one has disappeared from HISD.
Most, if not all, were taken from locations on Houston’s north side. One off west Tidwell, another from the Lopez bus company off Melrose and Berry Street.
Timothy Williams is the superintendent at the High School for Business.
“We were going to park them over there inside the gate. Until we could get a gate around the facility, but we really didn’t think that was going to be a problem,” said the charter school’s superintendent.
While it is important to point out that there is no known threat, HPD’s Criminal Intelligence Division mentioned in a recent e-mail that these school bus thefts are a homeland security concern.
One detective told 11 News a bus might have been stolen and taken across the border to Mexico.
Nevertheless, since the Sept. 11 attacks the thought of terrorists targeting children has certainly been discussed by the Department of Homeland Security. And that is why finding out what happened to these buses is very important.
Published reports in 2004 said that the U.S. Military found information in Iraq pertaining to U.S. schools.
Reportedly, there have been hundreds of thefts of school bus radios in the United States.
With all that being said, 11 News was reminded Monday by law enforcement officials that school buses remain one of the safest ways to get to and from school. In fact, nationwide, school buses transport nearly 24 million kids to school daily.
And bus drivers all around the country are being trained regularly to look out for suspicious people and activities.
About the missing buses. Is it possible they parked them at some other location and that there is a mix up. A communication problem? I mean stealing is big school bus is kinda like trying to steal a airplane. It’s like everyone would see you. Where else could they have parked them? Besides that. Who would steal these old out dated no AC school buses from Texas anyway? Confused.
Question to anyone. Do public buses that you pay to ride on have AC in them? If so then why not use those kinds of buses for school kids? Why do children have to ride in these school buses with no AC?
What is the latest development on this case. Have any of the buses been recovered?
Leanne, do you think perhaps you’re missing the, um, point?
I think there is a lot more to worry about here than the air conditioning in the bus. If Islamic extremists were to pick up our children at bus stops, and take them to some remote location, terror beyond our imagination could occur. I am a teacher at a high school, and to my knowledge no action is being taken to guard against this threat.
They are not stealing these busses because they are sweet rides, they want them to attack our most valuable thing: our kids.
How often do you see an empty school bus driving down the street? Do you ever think anything of it? Of course people would see them stealing the bus, but who is going to know they are not supposed to be driving it?????
And for the person wondering about the public busses with AC, you answered your own question in your post. Public busses can have AC because YOU PAY TO RIDE THEM! Schools are already on a tight budget and can’t afford to give kids a luxury ride to and from school.
Yikes.
Have there been other reports of buses stolen, for instance from other parts of the country? Seventeen is a significant enough number if they are loaded with young children, but being that buses are fairly easy to steal–meaning they do not have lot security and could be stolen virtually any time at night and not missed until morning–it seems to me it might be worth taking a wider look at this issue. What better weapon for terrorists than to horrify families by absconding with or harming their children?
This has my blood running cold. There have also been credible reports of Muslim ?men boarding one or more buses and disembarking. This smacks of trial runs. Further, the tragedy at Virg Tech illustrated just how “soft” our school targets are. I believe every parent should be talking to every school board , teacher and neighbor to heighten awareness.
Parents should heed this information and be able to recognize the normal bus driver when they give their precious cargo over to someone else, question the substitute…or
call the school and inquire about the policy on substitute bus drivers…their background checks, photo IDs, etc., etc. …or
instruct their children not to get on the bus if they feel unsafe or the driver seems odd, and call the parent, the police, look for a “safe” sign if possible…or
PRIOR to these thoughts…create a “what if “plan of action and contact process……better be tardy to school than a deadly result.
Get involved with the school, their process, etc!
This whole thing is just terrible! Who’s to say our childern see their “regular bus driver”, and some one pulls a fast one on our driver, Then what? I say we all just drive our kids to school ~ and stick it to Bin ladin.
and as far as the A.C. person…Get with it!!
Islamo fascist took over a school in Russia and killed beautiful little girls in front of their fathers. They didn’t take it seriously and neither is this country. We should be putting every available resource to track these down. Ever hear of LOJACK! My gosh people this is terrifying! OBL will go to whatever lengths it takes to awaken our senses. Is our children worth this? NO!
The problem is not just danger in transporting our children to school on buses — it is them being in a school altogether. The Beslen seige was AT the school! I sent e-mails to my local board of education and they sent me back the standard “we have security measures in place, blah-blah-blah” response but no one is prepared for anything of this nature. Especially our more vulnerable rural/county schools. I am beginning homeschooling this week, only because I am fortunate enough to be in a position that I already work from home and can do so. I feel for people who do not have this option. Some call it over-reacting — I call it survival. Any risk, no matter how small, is too great. We definitely live in a different world and we MUST hold our educators, local law enforcement, etc., accountable and get them on the ball adding security measures a.s.a.p. at our schools!
Jim is correct, Islamic fascist took over Beslen, a school in Russia. They raped and killed many of the small girls in front of their, fellow students and some of their fathers. They took a bunch of the male students to the roof and executed them, tossing their bodies off the roof for the other students to see. They gave them no toilet breaks or water for 3 days all because they have a twisted view of their religion. WE BETTER TAKE THE THEFT OF ANY BUSES SERIOUSLY!
FBI and Homeland Security are well aware of this threat but have not come out to warn parents in fear of causing a national panic. We this attack does come, it will be on various schools across the nation at the same time.
Should the day come or maybe I should say when the day comes that you hear of any ONE of our schools is attacked, you should go immediately to your child’s school and pick them up. Tell the school you have a family emergency or the child has a doctor’s appointment but DO NOT cause panic.
The odds that your child’s school will be hit are small but you don’t want to take even a small chance that your child goes through a Beslen style attack.
God forbid but if your child’s school is attacked, DO NOT GO TO THE SCHOOL, this will be the most difficult thing you’ll ever have to do. Intelligence reports say they plan to put bombs in the parking lots and have snippers on the roof shooting parents who come to the school all for the benefit of our TV and newscast to help create even more horror and terror.
Talk to your children about this but not the details of Beslen tell them if their school is attacked, they need to get out of the building and off the school campus any way possible and immediately. The terrorist plan to lock the school down.
Let NO ONE tell you “we will negotiate a release” with the terrorist. The terrorist have no exit plan just like those islamic nut jobs that flew our airliners into buildings. They plan to die at the schools and take as many of our children with them.
I believe this would truly be the darkest day our country has ever experienced and I hope we never live to see it but the intelligence from around the country is simply too great to ignore.
Learn all you can about this, tell your children without scaring them to death. Hold your school and local police force accountable for a plan and asked them what they would do. Some districts are very prepared and others choose to ignore the potential problem out of some twisted political correctness ideology.
Sorry “Rosie” but Islamic terrorist DO exists and thousands are already in this country. They will not stop until they think they have won by destroying the United States.
Glenn Beck’s “The Perfect Day” video series is a must-watch for anyone concerned about a massive terrorist seige on multiple schools in the US:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1898729/posts
Watch especially Part 4 “Preparation, Not Panic,” that lists the questions we need to be asking school officials right now about their security plans. Most have plans on paper only, do no training of school personnel and haven’t coordinated with local police departments. What I learned from the program: invite your local police to come hang around the schools on a regular basis, even just to sit in the parking lot doing paperwork or drinking coffee– an occupied police car on school grounds is a deterrent.
I think it is SSSOOOOOO important that the mainstream media start talking about this so when something happens we are not totally off guard and uninformed.
What’s really scary is I was subbing in the office of the elementary school where my child goes to school and they didn’t even get the fire drill right. New admin this year and they didn;t even have a plan for the fire drill. So…….I thinking their plan for a terrorist attack is null.
Please work with your school district and its officials. We are not highly paid, but are working for the students because we want to and we really do care. Help us help your children and be a partner not an adversary. All of us bus drivers and others in the public school sector are trained and do watch out for suspicious cars and/or people around schools, school bus lots, school bus stops and along the roads nearby who might possibly be taking pictures or casing the location. A lot of school districts have put GPS on their busses and that costs less than a/c.
New buses, without a/c, cost approximately $80,000. If you have only a couple of busses, you could spring for a/c, but the normal schools have 80-200 busses, so a/c is out of the question.
Does anyone know if there are regulations or recommendations on where the school’s busses should be parked during the school day. We have all the busses in our attendance area parked right beside our school. Actually between our school and an high school. Is this safe? Shouldn’t the busses be stored away from the schools. Not only because of terroist attacks but in the case of a fire. That is a lot of fuel sitting there.
Yeah, make America mad. Japan never thought we would invade and they did not believe we would use the bomb either. Mess with our children and truly experience American wrath. They take our conventional war strategy as a sign of weakness….
I can not imagine what the reaction would be across the country, but I doubt anyone would want to “talk” it out…
How do we know these buses are not being stolen to run drugs? Houston is a hotbed for drug smuggling, money laundering, and the likes. While the theft is certainly a Homeland Security threat, it’s also a police concern or it should be. And I would like to know what’s being done about it on both sides. It seems like nobody with the power to do anything in Houston cares either way. Can we get an update on this situation?
Schools and school bus routes are our most vulnerable targets.