SCHOOL BUS DRIVER HITS TRUCK, ADMITS DRUG USE

A Mesa school bus driver admitted smoking marijuana and speed just
days before his bus rear-ended a pickup truck, police said.

Timothy James Loomis failed to stop Friday while approaching another
stopped school bus on McKellips Road near Pasadena. Thirty Westwood
High School students were on board and one student was taken to a
hospital, treated and released.

All Mesa Public Schools bus drivers must pass a drug test before being
hired. Throughout the year, drivers face random drug tests, said
Michael Yonker, director of transportation for Mesa Public Schools.

Tim Gaffney, a detective with the Mesa Police Department, said in a
report that at the scene, Loomis' eyes appeared watery and bloodshot,
his face was flushed and he had tremors.

Loomis, 20, also told Gaffney that he had been drug free for two
years, but later admitted to police to smoking "six bowls of speed on
Saturday" and "three to eight bowls of marijuana on Saturday" as well.

Gaffney said that Mesa police are awaiting the results of Loomis' drug
test before submitting the case to the Maricopa County Attorneys
Office for review. Potential charges could include endangerment to
driving while impaired by drugs or driving with an illegal drug in his
system.

Loomis is on paid administrative leave from his job with the school
district and was unavailable for comment Monday.

Yonker said the incident is an exception to the rule.

Mesa, the state's largest school district, employs about 450 bus
drivers. Like districts nationwide, it faces a school bus driver
shortage but that does not affect the district's rigorous hiring
process, Yonker said. That process includes state certification,
passing a criminal background check and meeting with up to 15 people
during the screening process.

"The system as it is now is very thorough and really what happened
here is really an exception," Yonker said.

The district's bus driver turnover rate ranges from 10 to 15 percent,
he said.