ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – The St. Johns County School Board is looking into allegations that school bus drivers may not be performing necessary inspections of the buses they drive.
Several students were hurt, including one who was critically injured, in a school bus crash last month in St. Johns County.
The controversial group Photography is Not a Crime began looking into school bus inspections after that crash, photographing other buses as they left the schoolyards.
Records say the buses are being inspected each day, but the group contends that some buses it observed were not inspected. Now one member, Jeff Gray, is being sued and ordered to stay away from all St. Johns County schools.
Gray said that he filmed drivers from off the property at a St. Johns County elementary school, watching to see if the buses leaving the school were inspected before they drove off. The drivers are required to do an inspection every day and fill out a report.
Gray said he didn’t see them complete that inspection. And later he confronted the drivers, asking to see the records. Both drivers refused.
“I wanted to see if the bus drivers who have custody of the records -- that makes them legal custodians of the records -- I wanted to see if they were actually filling out the pre-trip forms, and I wanted to go to the source of where the records were stored, and that's the only way we could really know if the bus drivers were filling out the forms,” Gray said.
The school board fired back Tuesday and is now suing Gray for harassing employees by demanding public records from the wrong people.
The complaint says “the school board acknowledges and respects [Gray's] right to inspect copy and photograph the district's public records. However, there is no need for [Gray's] guerrilla tactics to obtain records.”
School officials said Gray has been warned before about his approach.
“He started participating in activities that were near school grounds and disrupting employees during their normal workdays,” spokeswoman Christina Langston said. “Some employees absolutely feel threatened. They don't know who he is. He doesn't sign in as a visitor, and they are scared.”
Gray denied using intimidating tactics.
“I think my videos clearly show. (I) videotape everything that I do. I'm always polite. I am always peaceful, and I nicely asked for the records,” Gray said.
School officials said they want Gray to abide by the official rules for obtaining public records, going to the administration first and not to lower-level employees.
“If we have to go through different hoops and hurdles, by the time we get the records they could be altered or doctored or created out of thin air,” Gray said.
The school board also wants Gray to pay $15,000 in attorneys fee from a previous lawsuit he filed against them and later dropped.
The school board said it was not aware of the allegations about the lack of inspections when the suit was filed against Gray. Officials are now checking to see what’s happening or not happening with the buses.
“We were not aware of where there was any type of problem or allegations until the video was produced this morning,” Langston said.
Gray posted the video from the elementary school on YouTube.
“I think it shows they have something to hide,” Gray said.
After News4Jax interviewed Gray on Tuesday, we watched as the same two drivers he filmed got in their buses. This time, they turned on lights and revved up their engines. We didn’t see the female driver walk around the bus inspecting the outside.