Story Archive

Who’s in Charge Here?

“We can’t wake him up!” Tara Keener says kids yelled as they stood over her 5-year-old son’s seat on the school bus. Keener, an emergency room nurse, ran onto the bus to render medical aid, even though the driver told her it was illegal for her to board. It turned out the kindergartner was merely asleep. Keener spoke to Pamala Schaeffer of Dum’s Bus Service, asking that the bus driver be fired. Schaeffer refused, and instead contacted Charles F. Chenot III, the Perry County, Pa., district attorney, who slapped Keener with a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully boarding a school bus. Schaeffer, who complained that Keener didn’t give the CPR-trained bus driver enough time to act, defended the decision to prosecute, but said she had only asked the D.A. questions. Chenot said the company had “pushed” him into prosecuting Keener. “That’s the problem,” Chenot said. “Everyone thinks that I am the one pushing this case to go to trial, and I’m not.” But with outrage building in the community, Chenot dropped the case. (AC/Harrisburg Patriot News, Perry County Times) ...No, sir: blaming the prosecutor for deciding to prosecute is not “the problem” in this case.