A Level 3 sex offender was found hiding on a school bus carrying St. Paul kindergartners back from a field trip last week. A mother chaperoning the trip said she and other parents are furious he’s already released from jail.

Michael Charles Friedrichs, 61, pleaded guilty in 2011 to fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct after he was accused of sneaking onto a Minneapolis school bus and masturbating near several elementary-school-age children.

In 2004, he was convicted of sexually assaulting the 15-year-old son of a woman he once dated.

In Thursday’s case, no police reports indicated he had contact with students or committed lewd acts, said Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman.

St. Paul police arrested Friedrichs on suspicion of a registration violation, but the department’s sex crimes unit determined the case would be handled by Minneapolis police because he’s a registered sex offender there, Linders said.

Friedrichs was released Saturday from the Ramsey County jail. Minneapolis police are conducting an investigation, a department spokesman said Monday.

Maggie Zimmerman, who was chaperoning her daughter’s kindergarten class from Chelsea Heights Elementary School, said Monday that “parents are horrified and helpless.” She said was not upset with police, but with the system overall.

“I want to see this man both charged for this incident and, ultimately, committed as a sexual predator,” Zimmerman wrote in an email. “I can’t guess how many buses he may have gotten on and off of without being caught. Or how many other buses he may board in the near future. His conviction record suggests that prison has not rehabilitated him and that he will continue to do this as long as he is free.”

In 1996, Friedrichs was found sitting on an unoccupied school bus in a Rosemount bus storage lot and then, in 2004, a bus driver found Friedrichs on an unoccupied school bus parked at the Minnesota Zoo, according to Apple Valley police. When police investigated, Friedrichs told them he masturbated on unoccupied school buses in the past, police said in 2011.

On Monday, St. Paul Public Schools spokesman Kevin Burns said the district “is conducting its own investigation to learn more about what happened and to strengthen our bus safety procedures.”

Video footage showed Friedrichs pried open the doors to board the bus when the driver wasn’t on it, before students were picked up from their field trip at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Burns said.

“At no time were students unsupervised by teachers and chaperones,” Principal Jill Gebeke wrote to parents of kindergartners on the bus. “… SPPS has also informed its school bus contractors about the incident to reinforce our required safety protocols. When a driver enters or exits a bus, they must walk through to verify that the bus is empty and ready for its next route.”

St. Paul police were called to the elementary school in the Como neighborhood on Thursday at 1:15 p.m. on a report of an unauthorized person on a school bus. Friedrichs told officers he took a different bus from Southdale Center in Edina and then got on the wrong bus at the Walker, Linders said.

There were 26 students and four adults on the bus, Zimmerman said. When they were on Interstate 94, the class’ teacher said she saw a man on the back of the bus.

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Friedrichs was released from prison in April and has completed his supervised release.

“In my mind, this whole thing highlights a system that sets people loose again over and over, continually endangering children in the community,” Zimmerman said.

Friedrichs could not be reached for comment Monday.