thankfully he is an incompetent boobA bus driver in northern Italy abducted 51 children and their chaperones Wednesday, ordering the children's hands to be bound and threatening them with death during the 40-minute ordeal, before setting the vehicle on fire when he was stopped by a Carabinieri blockade.
Officer broke glass windows in the back of the bus and got all the passengers to safety without serious injury before the flames destroyed the vehicle, authorities said. As he was apprehended, the driver said he was protesting migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Commander Luca De Marchis told Sky TG24.
De Marchis told Sky TG24 that the driver, an Italian citizen of Senegalese origin in his 40s, threatened the passengers, telling them that “no one would survive today” as he commandeered the bus carrying two middle-school classes to a nearby gym in Cremona province, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Milan.
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“While two officers kept the driver busy — he took a lighter and threatened to set fire to the vehicle with a gasoline canister on board — the others forced open the back door, breaking two windows,” De Marchis said. While the evacuation was still underway, the driver started the blaze.
De Marchis credited the officers' “swiftness and courage,” for getting out all the children and their teachers “with no tragic consequences.”
Some of the passengers were treated at a hospital, mostly for cuts and scratches related to the evacuation, he said.
The driver was apprehended and was being treated for burns. ANSA identified him as Ousseynou Sy, and said he was being investigated on suspicion of kidnapping, intention to commit a massacre, arson and resisting law enforcement. The prosecutor's office later said they would add terrorism as an aggravating circumstance, since the event caused panic.
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Modified thread title for clarity - K.
