A school bus driver in Salem faces charges for allegedly pulling a 9-year-old boy out of his seat and dragging him to another seat during an incident outside of an elementary school in January.
Bergeline Mesidor, 47, of Norwich was arrested by members of Connecticut State Police Troop K on Feb. 8 and charged with risk of injury to a minor and second-degree breach of peace, according to court records.
She is free on a promise to appear while her case is pending in Norwich Superior Court, records show. She is scheduled to face a judge on April 1.
“As student safety is our top priority at all times, the Salem School District was in communication with law enforcement and the Department of Children and Families,” Superintendent of Salem Schools Brian Hendrickson said in a statement. “The driver was placed on leave by the bus company and will no longer be driving for the Salem District.”
Hendrickson said families of the students on the bus — identified as Bus #7 — were notified of the allegations on Jan. 8 and the rest of the school community learned of the situation on Feb. 8, when Mesidor was arrested.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, the mother of a 9-year-old boy contacted state police on Jan. 6 and said she was informed a day earlier by an employee of her son’s daycare that the boy and other children reported that he was grabbed by the neck by his bus driver and pulled onto the floor. The incident allegedly occurred as the boy was being picked up from Salem School on Hartford Road after 3 p.m. and brought to a local daycare, the affidavit said.
The daycare worker informed the mother that she would contact DCF.
“We received reports on this incident and have been in contact with law enforcement and school officials,” a DCF spokesperson said in a statement. “Due to state confidentiality statutes, we are unable to comment any further on this matter.”
The mother told state police she made arrangements to pick her son up from daycare before contacting both the principal of Salem School and M&J Bus Inc., the company that owns the bus, about getting surveillance from the bus during the alleged incident.
After picking up the boy from daycare, the mother was told by her son that he and a friend were “playing by hitting each other’s hats” shortly after boarding the school bus, when he suddenly felt the driver grab him by the book bag and pull him out of his seat, the affidavit said. The boy told his mother the bus driver then dragged him along the floor toward the front of the bus and sat him in a different seat, the warrant affidavit said.
The boy would later recall the event while speaking with a school official, saying Mesidor “ripped” him from his seat and threw him to the ground before he was “pulled back up and thrown into another seat,” the warrant affidavit said.
Other students were able to corroborate that the boy was forcibly pushed into a different seat, according to the warrant affidavit.
When a trooper interviewed Mesidor on Jan. 8, she said she had been working for M&J for about two years and that this was the first incident report she had ever been involved in, the warrant affidavit said.
Mesidor denied having any physical contact with the victim and insisted that she told him verbally to change seats after she saw him “screaming and yelling with other students,” according to the warrant affidavit. She said she preferred to have him in the front of the bus because of his “regular behavior that causes safety concerns,” which she described as him sometimes standing up on the seat and facing backward while she is driving, the warrant affidavit said.
Mesidor told troopers the boy got up and moved on his own after she asked him to and was quiet during the bus ride to daycare, the warrant affidavit said.
Mesidor also told a trooper that the bus was not running at the time of the alleged incident, which meant the surveillance camera was not recording, according to the warrant affidavit.
“The Salem District remains in full cooperation with Troop K as this incident remains under active investigation,” Hendrickson said. “If the public has any information regarding the incident on Bus #7, we encourage any individual with information to contact Troop K.
“Due to the active investigation and because this is also a personnel issue for M&J Bus Company, the Salem School District will have no other comment on this issue at this time,” the superintendent continued. “We want to reassure families and the community at large that student safety is and will remain the top priority of the Salem School District at all times.”
M&J Bus Inc. did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
