Police: Knife-wielding man held, children safe after Arkansas bus hijacking
By AnneClaire Stapleton. Jason Hanna and Nick Valencia, CNN
October 17, 2013
(CNN) -- A man with a knife hijacked a school bus in central Arkansas Thursday morning, taking 11 elementary school students and their original driver on a detour that police ended after a roughly 10-mile chase, authorities said.
Nicholas John Miller, 22, was arrested after the incident, which began in Jacksonville -- about 12 miles northeast of Little Rock -- and ended in nearby Cabot, Jacksonville police Capt. Kenny Boyd said.
No one -- including the 11 students of Pinewood Elementary School in Jacksonville and the original bus driver -- was injured, Boyd said.
The incident began with Miller allegedly demanding a car from a woman in Jacksonville, Boyd said. But the woman "did not have one to give," Jacksonville police added in a news release.
The bus had stopped nearby, and Miller left the woman, boarded the bus and, armed with the knife, took over the driver's seat, Jacksonville police said.
The woman called police, who eventually found the bus and pursued it north to Cabot. Police stopped the bus roughly 20 minutes after the hijacking began, according to Boyd.
"We were able to get the bus stopped. The suspect was taken into custody, and nobody was injured," he said.
An office worker who answered the phone at the school Thursday morning said parents were being notified.
Boyd said investigators don't yet know why the bus was hijacked.
Miller was being charged Thursday with a felony count of vehicle piracy, 12 felony counts of kidnapping, and two felony counts of aggravated assault, Jacksonville police spokeswoman April Kiser said.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/17/justice/arkansas-school-bus-hijacked/
