WOOLWICH, Maine — A school bus driver has been charged with misdemeanor assault after a 12-year-old Woolwich Community School student said he pushed her as she stepped off his school bus Thursday afternoon.
Michael Rouillard, 62, was issued a summons for Class D misdemeanor assault, Chief Deputy Brett Strout of the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office said Saturday.
The incident was caught on home security video by the Mary Johnston, the mother of 12-year-old Gretchen Johnston. Johnston told NEWS CENTER Maine on Friday that Rouillard pushed her as she exited the bus.
She says she dropped her cell phone, stopped to pick it up, and then “high-fived the little kids” at the front of the bus before stepping down.
‘I went to take a step off the bus. Then he just shoved me off the bus,” she said at her home Friday afternoon.
Gretchen said Rouillard had forgotten to drop off another student on Nequasset Road so had to double-back. Then he became angry at the noise on the bus, she said, and parked for about 10 minutes until the bus was “still.”
Mary Johnston said that when Gretchen called her, she accessed the video from her phone and immediately called Reed. She said she has previously complained about Reed as many as nine times.
"If Gretchen hadn't been holding the railing then she could have gotten really hurt," Mary Johnston said.
“I told him it was irrefutable,” she said. “It was very cut and dry. An adult put his hands on my daughter. I watched a grown man shove my daughter down the stairs.”
Rouillard was the regular driver of the route along Weston Road in Woolwich. He is employed by Bath Bus Service, which contracts with Regional School Unit 1 to provide transportation for students who attend the district's schools in the Bath area.
On Friday, Bath Bus Service co-owner Bill Reed said Rouillard had been suspended from driving a school bus pending the outcome of the criminal case. He is currently driving oil delivery trucks, according to Reed.
This is the second time in two years a driver for Bath Bus Service has been charged with a crime involving students.
In August 2019, Timothy McGowan pleaded guilty to invasion of privacy and possession of sexually explicit material after an investigation determined he had taken "upskirt" photographs of young girls as they boarded or exited his school bus. McGowan then shared the photos on an international illicit photo-sharing website.
McGowan was sentenced to 364 days in prison and is required to register as a sex offender for life.
Patrick Manuel, superintendent of RSU 1, did not return a phone call on Friday.
Rouillard is scheduled to appear in West Bath District Court on May 12.
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