Vandals take aim at school buses with pellet guns

by Nick Delgado

Guam - The Department of Public Works has filed a pair of reports with the Guam Police Department as vandals took aim at their school buses. Although it may have been what they believe a pellet gun, it was enough to rattle students and shatter windows.

The incident happened all within a one hour timeframe. DPW Dededo Bus Satellite supervisor Steve Cruz said, "The first call was one of my busses from Maria Elementary taking the elementary and the kids brought it to his attention that he had a crack window, so he pulled over the bus and found out that the bus was shot at."

Cruz says he immediately told the bus driver to first check on the condition of the young students on board. And before he could respond himself, Cruz received more disturbing reports from two other bus drivers. "Two more buses that was coming from BMS was shot at again at the same area at Ysengsong," he said.

It hasn't even been a week since the fatal mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary occurred. Students were shocked and were in fear of what just took place on their bus, but fortunately no injuries were reported. "Because the window was rolled down so it penetrated the first one but it just cracked the window so we tried to find that but we couldn't," he said.

Although the projectiles that caused the damage were no where in site, Cruz says Guam Police were immediately called to assist to each of the reported pellet gun shootings. "There was no injuries fortunately I'm glad that nobody was hurt otherwise our buses I don't know we need to crack this I don't know if they were kids or adults but we need to put a stop to this," he said.

He says the damages put a damper to his bus operations, as his crew is already left having to do two and sometimes three bus routes at a time. Department of Education deputy superintendent Rob Malay said, "We're learning about an incident that might have taken place that I believe taken yesterday involving some o f our children from our Dededo schools traveling o a bus, so we're going to be working closely with the department of public works bus operations as well as the police department at the Dededo Precinct to determine what happened what steps are going to be necessary." 

"All I want to say to these parents if they could, or see anything out of the obvious help us out because we need that help."

Police are asking the public's assistance in finding those responsible for the apparent pellet gun shooting. As DOE continues to gather more information about yesterday's incident, they also intend to have school administrator send to parents to inform them of the incident that happened here. Meantime, DOE will be working with DPW bus operations to ensure that bus drivers are trained so that they handle the behavior of all students as they transport them to and from the campus.