Former Minnesota School Bus Driver Sentenced For DWI
Rush City, MN ( KROC-AM News ) - A former Minnesota school bus driver has been given a jail sentence for driving drunk while transporting dozens of students.
was arrested in February after the school bus she was driving for the Rush City School District went off a road in Chisago County and became stuck in a yard next to a farm field. The criminal complaint says there were 45 students on the bus and about two thirds of the children were elementary age.
The court document says a Chisago County Sheriff's Sergeant, who responded to the incident, detected a strong odor of alcohol on her breath and noticed other signs of impairment. The Sergeant also noted that the bus driver was in possession of an insulated coffee mug and that it "smelled of coffee with some kind of alcoholic beverage added."
Ffrench was charged with two gross misdemeanor counts of DWI involving a commercial vehicle and the school bus. It was alleged that a preliminary breath test measured her one-alcohol-concentration at nearly .2 and that another test that was later administered at the Sheriff's Office measured her BAC at .17, which is more than four times above the legal limit for driving a commercial vehicle and more than double the legal limit for driving any vehicle.
In August, Ffrench entered a guilty plea to one of the DWI charges. She has now been sentenced to a year in jail, although all but 15 days of the jail sentence have been stayed. She has also been ordered to pay a $400 fine and will be on probation for four years.
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