WOOLWICH, Maine — A school bus driver for Bath Bus Service has been suspended from that duty after he allegedly pushed a 12-year-old girl down the steps of the school bus Thursday afternoon.
The incident, which was caught on the family's security camera, is under investigation by the Sagadahoc County, Maine Sheriff’s Office.
Just after 3 p.m. Thursday, bus driver Michael Rouillard, 61, of Bath, stopped on Weston Road to drop off five Woolwich Central School students, including Mary Johnston’s three daughters.
Gretchen Johnston, 12, was the last off 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 and her mother had just returned from an appointment with a doctor, who examined a twisted ankle, she said.
Gretchen said Rouillard had forgotton 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.”
Billy Reed, co-owner of Bath Bus Service, said Friday that Rouillard has been suspended from driving a school bus pending the outcome of a criminal case, and is driving an oil delivery truck.
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.”
Johnston said she also called the sheriff's office, and she and her daughter were interviewed by a deputy, as were several other children and their parents.
Chief Deputy Brett Strout of the sheriff's office could provide no further information.
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