Pinellas County bus driver John Moody will not face criminal charges after a brutal beating of a teen boy went down on his bus last month.
On the afternoon of July 9, three 15-year-old boys attacked a 13-year-old boy aboard a school bus. The three stomped on the boy more than 20 times, according to police. They broke his arm and then took his money.
The brutal beating was prompted when the 13-year-old reported the three to school officials earlier that day after they tried to sell him pot.
Moody, 64, had been driving the bus from Lealman Intermediate School summer classes that day.
Gulfport Police arrested the three 15-year-olds, who each face aggravated battery charges.
One of them is charged with taking cash from the 13-year-old.
Authorities had originally sought a child neglect charge against Moody.
Moody had stopped the bus and pleaded to the boys to stop beating the 13-year-old. He called for help, but the teens had fled by the time cops arrived.
Gulfport Police Chief Robert Vincent said Moody should have intervened but "didn't make any effort to do so."
Moody argued that he had no proper medical training and that district policy prevented him from getting physically involved in the beatdown.
He instead asked other students to break up the mugging.
Moody's attorney, meanwhile, is asking for an apology from the Gulfport PD and from Chief Vincent.
"I think if he had touched these children, he would have put more people in danger," the attorney, Frank McDermott, said. "He would have had to rip them off this young man, throwing these violent children into other children."
Moody has since retired from his bus-driving gig.
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