A Fort Morgan man was arrested after firing a bullet from a scoped, high-powered rifle into the back of a school bus occupied by seven kindergartners on Monday, authorities said.
Michael L. Cummings, 19, is under investigation for reckless discharge of a firearm, said Sheriff Jim Crone of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office. He was released from the Morgan County Detention Center on Tuesday on a $5,000 bond.
“This doesn’t get much closer,” Crone said. “I have no doubt we would have had deaths or at least life-threatening injuries had kids been sitting in those seats.”
No one on the bus was injured.
Cummings admitted he fired the bullet but told investigators that he did so unintentionally, Crone said.
“He says it was an accident,” Crone said. “I don’t see how it could be. A big yellow school bus stands out. Why would you even point a gun in that direction?”
The gun was fired about 1,000 feet from the bus, and the bullet traveled straight through the bus, Crone said. Had it been fired accidentally, as Cummings said, the bullet would have been on a different trajectory, according to Crone.
Even so, Crone said, “our investigation doesn’t prove he intentionally wanted to kill one of those kids on the school bus.”
A scoped, high-powered rifle believed to be used in the shooting was recovered during the investigation, Crone said.
When the shot was fired, the bus driver thought one of the children had popped a balloon, said Dan Patterson, superintendent of the Morgan County School District. But when she returned to the bus garage, she found the hole in the back of the bus, along with holes in three seats. All the children had been riding in the front, Patterson said.
A review of surveillance video on the bus determined the shot hit the vehicle as it traveled west in the 20000 block of Road Q.
“The trajectory of the bullet led to exactly who fired the shot,” Patterson said.
Cummings could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But Michael Philip Cummings of Fort Morgan, who is not related to Michael Cummings but has known him since he was a child, said an accident is the only thing that makes sense to him.
“He’s a good kid,” Philip Cummings said.
Crone said Michael Cummings does not have a criminal record. But Patterson said the shooting alone is deserving of severe punishment.
“I think it was pretty stupid,” he said. “I think they ought to throw him in prison.”
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-820-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
