An Ocean Township school bus driver and his assistant were arrested after allegedly leaving a 16-year-old special-needs student locked in an empty bus for nearly three hours Friday afternoon, authorities said.OCEAN TOWNSHIP — An Ocean Township school bus driver and his assistant were arrested Friday after allegedly leaving a 16-year-old special-needs student locked in an empty bus for nearly three hours Friday afternoon, authorities said.
The bus driver and his aide were charged with child endangerment, said Ocean Township police spokesman Sgt. Thomas Burke in a statement today.
When the mother of the student alerted police that her son had not been dropped off at home, the school bus driver, George Werman, 77, was interviewed by school officials and police, Burke said.
Werman told the school official he had dropped the child off at his home, and then provided more detail to police, said the spokesman.
Werman told authorities he dropped the teen off at his home about 3:20 p.m. and saw him enter the house under the watch of a family member, he said.
After a search of the area turned up empty, a police officer tracked down the school bus at the township Board of Education parking lot, Burke said.
The teen was found locked inside the bus, said Burke. Safe and unhurt, he had been by himself for about two hours and forty-five minutes, he said.
Werman, and his aide, Robert Cronin, 78, of Belmar, were released pending an upcoming court appearance.