Local

6-year-old walks through wind, rain after picked up by wrong school bus

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte mother is outraged, claiming her 6-year-old son was picked up by a bus he shouldn't have been on after he was forced to cross a busy street alone.

The boy's mother told Channel 9 that staff at his school put the child on a school bus he wasn’t supposed to be on.

After school Monday, Mikel Laney then walked more than a mile through the rain and storms.

"I was soaking wet," Laney said.

He was forced to cross Tuckaseegee Road in west Charlotte after being dropped off by the wrong bus.

"I thought someone was going to kill me or something,” the child said.

His mother, Tiffany Mungo, said the first-grader was never supposed to be on a school bus at all.

She said she texted his teacher at Ashley Park Elementary School to say it was Mikel's first day at an after-school program and asked the teacher to make sure he got on a bus for that program.

The teacher replied, "OK, got it!"

As Mikel was walking to his grandmother's home, he said another school bus pulled up.

The driver picked him up and dropped him off at his grandmother's home. That's how his mother found out what happened.

"That's dangerous,” the mother said. “Anything could've happened. He could've been hit by a car. A stray dog, anything could've got him. He could've been kidnapped."

“(Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools) is aware of the concern and actively looking into the incident,” a CMS spokesperson said in an email. “We're checking on the transportation changes and encouraging parents to follow protocol for making changes to students’ drop-off schedules.”

Murgo told Eyewitness News he school's principal called her to apologize and said it would never happen again.