Boy, 3, dropped off at wrong bus stop in Illinois, mother says

HARVEY, Ill. -- A 3-year-old boy was dropped off at the wrong bus stop in south suburban Harvey, Illinois, as the pre-kindergarten student was returning home from school, his mother said.

"My baby could have been dead. He could have been anywhere and I didn't know where he was. They didn't know where he was," said mom Mahogany Curtis, 31, of her son, King.

The boy was found wandering around alone in a strange neighborhood - miles away from home.

"I'm like, 'How did this happen? He's 3.' They've got two bus monitors and a bus driver. How does a 3-year-old get off the bus by himself?" Curtis said.

The incident happened Thursday. That morning, the boy took the school bus from his designated pick-up/drop-off location at Bryant Elementary to Riley Early Childhood Center, where Curtis' son is a student.

The problem began Thursday afternoon after her son was put on the right bus, but then allowed to get off at the wrong stop, Curtis said.

Debbie Curtis - King's aunt - had been waiting for him at the bus stop, but when his bus showed up and he wasn't on it, she flew into a panic - calling both the boy's mother who was on her way to work at the time and the school.

"I'm in a daze. I'm just standing there saying, 'Where's my nephew? He's 3. Where could he be?'" Debbie Curtis recalled.

As the bus driver and the two bus monitors tried to figure out where the boy was, school officials called the family - letting them know that a woman brought the boy to another school office after noticing him walking alone - after he got off the bus.

"He didn't know what was happening. He was just sitting there. You could tell he'd been crying, but he was just there. He was quiet the whole time," Debbie Curtis said.

Officials with the Harvey School District 152 did not respond to a request for comment.

The Curtis family said the administration told them the employees involved would be reprimanded.

But this was of little comfort to the family of the 3-year-old boy.

"He could have been hit," Mahogany Curtis said. "Somebody could have just snatched him and I'd never see my son again.