John Washington III Questions School Bus Enforcement: 'School Bus Safety or Government Entrapment?'

John Washington III put school bus enforcement at the center of his latest statement, asking in his headline whether the practice amounts to 'school bus safety or government entrapment' and writing that 'the people deserve answers.' In the statement, John Washington III said school bus laws 'were created to protect our children, NOT to create another revenue stream for city and state governments.'

He said he is raising 'serious concerns about reports and allegations involving old, inactive school buses allegedly being used to catch drivers passing when their stop signs are activated' - buses, he wrote, that are 'allegedly no longer being used to transport children, yet are being operated in ways that result in traffic citations.' If governments and police departments are deliberately approving such tactics to collect money, he wrote, 'that is a serious abuse of government authority.' The allegations are carried here as he stated them - as reports and allegations he is raising, not as findings.

John Washington III was explicit about the line he draws. 'I fully support protecting our children,' he wrote. 'Any driver who illegally passes a school bus and endangers children should be held accountable.' But, he added, 'there is a difference between protecting children and deliberately setting people up to receive traffic tickets.'

As president, he pledged, his administration would not ignore the allegations: he wrote that he will push for federal investigations, where legally authorized, into cities, states and law enforcement agencies accused of deliberately manufacturing traffic violations for financial gain, and pursue accountability through every lawful avenue available, including federal civil rights enforcement where violations of federal law are established. 'No city government, police department, or state official should be above accountability,' he wrote. 'The government works for the people. The people do not exist to fund the government through deceptive enforcement practices.' If an inactive bus is being used primarily to generate citations rather than protect children, he wrote, the public deserves to know who authorized it, why it was authorized, and whether those citations were lawful.