Teens in Gulfport School Bus Beating Receive 'Indefinite Probation'

The surveillance video of a school bus beating in Gulfport gained national publicity and played a key role in the sentencing of the three teens who beat a younger boy on a school bus.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Raymond Gross called the video “shocking,” “hideous,” and said “all of us should be horrified.”

The video shows three 15-year-old boys punching, kicking and stomping on the 13-year-old victim for nearly a minute during a stop in Gulfport in July. The victim suffered a broken arm and tried to crawl under the seat during the attack.

Gross said the beating was “horrific and despicable and frankly, cowardly,” the Times reports.

According to the Tampa Tribune, the victim left $5 on the seat during the attack, as a plea for them to stop. One of the teens took it and all three left through the emergency exit while the bus driver called for help.

The assault happened after the victim refused to buy drugs from two of the three teens and alerted school officials at Lealman Intermedia School on July 10. 

At the end of the school day, the victim and suspect rode home on the same bus, #702.

On Thursday, August 29, all three teens appeared before Judge Gross in juvenile court. They pleaded guilty to aggravated batter and one pleaded guilty to robbery, according to the Times.

All three were sentenced to “indefinite probation” with several conditions, including community service, random urine screenings and electronic monitoring, the Times reports.

They also have to participate in anger-management sessions and were ordered to stay away from each other and the victim, according to TBO.

Just a few weeks ago, the Department of Juvenile Justice recommended court-supervised probation for two of the three teens. However, the Times reports, the department's recommendations changes with input from the department's secretary.

The Tampa Tribune reports that Gross told the boys several times that there fortunate to be tried in the juvenile justice system. Prosecutors considered charging the teens as adults, which would have had a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, the TBO reports.

All three teens apologized in court and wrote letters of apology to the victim, the Times reports. 

The victim's grandmother, Patricia Yankey, 64, did not attend the sentencing, but told the Tampa Bay Times after the judgment, "I just hope these kids learn. I just hope they realize what they have done to my grandson and how brutal it was."

The victim has since changed schools and attempted to board a school bus on the first day of school last week, the Times reports.

"He went to the bus stop and came back. And he said, 'I can't do it.'," Yankey told the TBT.

"I don't know that he'll ever be able to get on a bus again," she told the Times.

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