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The suspect will be charged with multiple counts of kidnapping.
A Fort Jackson trainee is in custody after allegedly hijacking a South Carolina elementary school bus with 18 children on board, authorities said.
The Forest Lake Elementary students and the bus driver are safe, Richland County Sheriff Lott said at a news conference.
Lott called this “one of the scariest calls that we could get in law enforcement.”
The incident began around 7 a.m. Thursday when the suspect allegedly fled Fort Jackson, Lott said.
The children had boarded the bus when the suspect, armed with a rifle, got on at the bus stop and allegedly “told the bus driver he didn’t want to hurt him, but he wanted him to drive him to the next town,” Lott said.
The bus driver started driving and the suspect brought the children to the front of the bus, Lott said.
“The kids started asking lots of questions to the suspect if he was going to hurt them or the bus driver,” Lott said.
“The suspect got a little frustrated,” Lott said, and the driver pulled over.
The children and the bus driver got off safely.
The suspect then drove the bus for a few miles before abandoning it, leaving the rifle inside, Lott said.
The suspect was spotted by deputies and civilians and was arrested without incident, Lott said. The trainee, believed to be in his third week at Fort Jackson, will be charged with multiple counts of kidnapping, Lott said. His name has not been released.
Some of the children had cellphones. Lott said authorities were alerted to the situation when a parent stopped a deputy to say “there was a man with a gun on the school bus.”
Richland County School Board Chairman James Manning said, “I’ve been on the board now for over 10 years and I have never received a call that scared me as much as the call that I received this morning — that a bus had been hijacked with our students and staff.”
The students were taken to school “where they received support from school employees and counselors and were reunited with their parents/guardians,” the school district said.
Superintendent Baron Davis said in a statement, “Once we were certain all students were accounted for and physically safe, we immediately began deploying social and emotional counseling resources to the school so that our students could begin the process of healing as they are dealing with a traumatic event. We will continue to provide counseling services for the students and their families, our bus driver and employees as long as necessary.”
Lott praised the bus driver who he said “kept his cool” and “kept the situation calm.”
“His main concern was the safety of those kids and he did his job,” Lott said.
Fort Jackson officials confirmed that the trainee ran away from his unit with his Army-issued rifle. Officials have issued an apology to the community.
“This was a failure in our accountability procedures that we truly regret and are apologetic to our community,” the Fort Jackson statement said.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
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