Driver In Bus Incident Pleads Guilty

A Silver Lake man who was accused in a January incident with a school bus pleaded guilty to charges of criminal recklessness with a vehicle in Kosciusko Superior Court II this morning.

Lloyd Wayne Perkins, of 3224 Courtland Drive, Silver Lake, entered the courtroom and entered a plea agreement in a 10-minute hearing.

Judge Robert Burner read the terms of the agreement, which included a 90-days license suspension, a $100 fine, $156.50 court costs and a one-year jail sentence. The jail sentence was suspended and Perkins was placed on probation for a year.

In open court, Judge Burner asked if Perkins was driving the vehicle that passed a Warsaw Community School bus and stopped suddenly in front of it.

"I stopped much like a mail carrier would ... half on and half off the road," Perkins said in the courtroom. "In my opinion (I did not stop) suddenly."

"Were there several children on the bus?" said Judge Burner.

"Yes," said Perkins.

Judge Burner then accepted the plea agreement and asked Perkins to surrender his driver's license to the court clerk.

On Jan. 17, Perkins followed the school bus, pulled alongside it and then forced it to stop after his daughter missed the bus.

According to the Warsaw Police Department report about the incident, Perkins forced the school bus to stop in the roadway on Ind. 15, south of the Claypool overpass. WPD Patrolman Greg Oberlin said Perkins honked his car horn as he drove his vehicle around the bus then pulled in front of the bus.

The bus driver, also from Silver Lake, refused to open the door, then drove on.

Upon arriving at Washington Elementary School, the bus driver again was confronted by Perkins, who left before police arrived, police reports indicate.

Perkins denied ever being irrate or confrontational during the incident and said the bus driver's statement to police was untrue.

After the January incident, Perkins videotaped the driver of the bus repeatedly rolling through a stop sign in Silver Lake from January through May. Perkins reportedly took the tape to Warsaw Community School officials and the driver later resigned.

Perkins also gave a copy of the tape to the Kosciusko County Prosecutor's Office, but the prosecutor declined to file charges against the bus driver.