Apparent pranksters fired a BB gun or a pellet gun at a school bus in west Denver on Tuesday, sending four students from the KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy charter school to the hospital with “minor, minor injuries,” said Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson.
The four students, all about 10 years old, were hit by glass shards from the bus windows and were taken to Denver Health Medical Center as a precaution, mostly because of their age, Jackson said.
“They were more scared than injured,” he said.
The shooting happened about 5:30 p.m. as the bus traveled west on West 14th Avenue near Perry Street, but the bus continued on to Vrain Street before stopping.
The bus driver “heard the kids scream. He heard the glass breaking,” said Denver Public Schools spokesman Mark Stevens.
“He decided to keep going because he wanted to get out of the range of the shooter,” Stevens said.
Three juveniles were seen running from the scene, Jackson said. The kids with the gun could face serious charges, depending on their ages, he added.
“Maybe some kid got a BB gun for Christmas,” Jackson said.
“This is not funny,” he said. “This is not a game. People could lose their eyes. It could have been a lot worse than it was.”
He said there is no reason to think the incident was anything more than a prank.
The BBs or pellets broke three windows on the driver’s side of the yellow bus. There were 26 or 28 students on the bus when it left the school, but Stevens said it was halfway through its route and he didn’t know how many were still on the bus when the incident occurred.
Another bus was brought to the scene to take the remaining students home, he said.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
