Mother charged with beating Brevard school bus driver

A woman arrested for physically confronting a Brevard school bus driver in front of crying students said she was only trying to get her child before her path was blocked for not having identification.

Kelly Ann Loughney, of Cocoa, was charged with battery on a school employee at about 3:45 p.m. Friday after sheriff's deputies were called to a bus stop at Friday Road and West Gate Plaza. They investigated a disturbance on a Brevard school bus carrying several children, records show.

None of the students were hurt.

Loughney was taken into custody and booked into the Brevard County Jail Complex. She posted a $5,000 bond the same day, records show.

Investigators said Loughney was at the bus stop and climbed aboard once it stopped and asked to pick up her 5-year-old son. The bus driver – a substitute for the day – asked the woman to produce identification. Loughney refused.

"I did use some language. I was wrong about it and I used the f-word," Loughney told FLORIDA TODAY. "But I said, 'I want my...child off the bus.' She was trying to keep me from getting my child."

Investigators said the bus driver stood up and blocked Loughney from getting to the child. Deputies also said that Loughney struck and pushed the bus driver until they arrived to investigate the incident.

Loughney, who said she lived a short distance from the bus stop, added that it is her routine to pick up her child at the bus stop and that she had not had any previous issues.

School district policy says that anyone attempting to retrieve a kindergarten or pre-kindergarten student from a bus must present an identification card before the child is released into their custody. School officials confirmed that policy with FLORIDA TODAY on Wednesday.

The policy, reiterated with an internal memo issued in 2013, also requires all kindergarten and pre-kindergarten school students to be picked up by parents or returned to their schools.

A court hearing on the charge is set for March 26.