A mother is accused of attacking a school bus driver who stopped to pick up her daughter in south Kansas City. Now a warrant has been issued for the her arrest.
"You think I woke up that morning attempting to start a fight at six something in the morning? No," Talitha McFadden, the mother, said in an exclusive 41 Action News interview.
She claims her then 3-year-old daughter kept missing the school bus last November when she confronted the driver, Gracie Clemons.
"I'm like, 'Ehhh!! What are you doing?' She rolled down her window and had an attitude," McFadden said.
Clemons said McFadden started calling her all kinds of names.
"I wasn't angry. I was just frustrated. I'm like, 'Why do you keep leaving her?' All I want to know is that you'll quit leaving her and she brought that anger out of me when she tried to talk about my child," McFadden said.
The situation escalated while two other children on board sat and watched.
"Next thing I know she took the trash can from the side of the door and she swung it at me and I started ducking. The next thing I know the lady is on the bus," Clemons said.
She sent a distress call to other bus drivers in area before police showed up.
"I was going to try and push her out with my foot but I couldn't fight the woman," Clemons said.
According to court documents, Clemons suffered multiple contusions across her body due to the assault.
"The way that the lady treated us that day was beyond disrespectful," McFadden said.
Officers arrested McFadden in November 2015. According to Clemons, municipal charges were filed but later dismissed in court.
"I didn't think it was fair for somebody to assault me that's still walking around," Clemons said.
The Jackson County Prosecutor's Office filed a felony count this week for assault and issued a warrant for McFadden’s arrest.
"If I had a chance to say sorry to her, because I'm a God-fearing woman, I would, but she was wrong," McFadden said.
Clemons told 41 Action News her employer, the Apple Bus Company, let her go in June. She claimed because the company called her "unhireable[sic]."
A spokesperson for the bus company didn't want to go into details but said that's not the case.
McFadden’s bond is set for $3,500.
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Andres Gutierrez can be reached at andres.gutierrez@kshb.com
