A Kentucky father was caught on video yelling, cursing and threatening a bus nearly full of elementary school students.
After the video went viral, he apologized publicly for his outburst and revealed the reason.
The incident happened on Friday, Aug. 26. Delvantae King explained to Wave News that his 9-year-old daughter had been bullied for months. She has been attacked physically and has had things thrown at her. The day before the act, his daughter came home with a lump on her head from being jumped.
“I let my emotions and my frustration and anger get the best of me,” he stated. “The only reason any of this transpired is due to bullying. And people don’t talk to their kids about bullying. And when you done reached out and keep trying and trying and trying to mediate something, and nobody’s doing nothing, what else are you left to do?”
King stated that he regrets his response and that he had previously tried to get the situation resolved with the Carter Traditional Elementary school officials, but it didn’t work. He said he also tried to resolve the issue through the bully’s parents, but it still didn’t work.
King formed a new plan and addressed the matter by boarding the bus that Friday, warning the students.
“B***h, you touch my daughter again, you gon’ have to get your momma, your daddy, your uncle or whoever is on here,” he told the girl who is allegedly the 9-year-old’s bully.
“She touched her!” a student told King.
“That go for every little motherf**ker on here,” King yelled. “You shouldn’t have touched her yesterday!”
“I didn’t touch her,” the girl told King.
The bus driver is heard telling the other student on the bus to sit down and seen holding back King and his daughter.
“I’m a flip this entire bus with everybody on it, and I mean that,” King threatened. “That go for everybody on here. Touch my daughter again, and I’m a flip this whole bus.”
He continued, “All that big bully s**t y’all got going on. I’m not playing,” he said. “You might need to get your daddy, your uncle, whoever…”
The school released a statement through email to the parents of other students on the bus about the incident the same day.
“While at a bus stop, an adult and a girl boarded Bus #2047, threatening the students on the bus,” the school principal Jamie Wyman wrote in the email. “The bus driver ushered the two non-Carter Elementary people off the bus, but they got in a vehicle and followed the bus. Students reported seeing the occupants of the vehicle display a gun while following Bus #2047.”
“Police and JCPS Security were notified, and the bus driver was told to return to our school and not make any more stops,” the email continued. “We had students wait on the bus until LMPD and JCPS Security arrived. They are investigating this incident.”
The mother of the girl on the receiving end of King’s verbal attack, Angel Clay, spoke to Wave to clear her daughter’s name.
“As a mother, I was disgusted,” Clay said. “My blood was boiling. I don’t stand for a whole lot, but respect is on the top of the list. And he got on the bus, launching and going to my child, calling her names that no man should ever call a woman, let alone a child. So I felt the pain, seen the pain in my daughter’s face. She was scared.”
Clay said that her daughter had been bullied as well, in which she noted videos taken from other students at the elementary school would show.
“I’m not saying she’s never been in ISAP (In-School Adjustment Program) or never been to the principal,” Clay clarified. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. She’s going to be held accountable. My daughter knows her mother doesn’t play that. Has she probably ever… you know, no. But she’s not a bully, and she ain’t never bullied them two little girls that live down the street and go to the school with her.”
Regarding King’s statement that he tried to communicate with the parents, Clay and her partner, Lennard Erving, said they had never seen or “heard from” King.
“This is his first appearance to the table, and this is the way he made his appearance,” Erving told Wave. “He’s not a concerned father. He hasn’t been to that school, checking on anything. No one at that school knows this man. This is the way he made his entrance.”
Additionally, in the email sent to parents, the principal encouraged parents to pick up their children from school rather than have them take the bus for safety reassurance.
