School bus kidnapping of 13 children ends in Maryland

LANDOVER HILLS, Md. -- A school bus driver with a loaded rifle took 13 children on a more than 100-mile odyssey Thursday that ended when he gave himself up to an off-duty police officer working security at a discount store.

None of the children was hurt. What the driver was intending to do was not immediately clear, but authorities said he faces federal kidnapping charges.

The bus picked up the students, ages 6 through 16, at Oley Valley High School in Oley, Pa., between 7:30 and 7:45 a.m. for the six-mile trip to the Berks Christian School in Birdsboro, Pa. The bus never showed up and school officials could not raise driver Otto Nuss by radio.

After a frantic, six-hour search by police helicopter and police cruisers in rainy, foggy weather, the bus and its charges were found 160 miles away, parked outside the Family Dollar store in Landover Hills near Washington.

Lt. Col. Orlando Barnes of the Prince George's County police said Nuss walked into the store and approached off-duty Officer Milton Chabla, telling him he had left a gun on the bus.

Cpl. Diane Richardson said the gun was a loaded semiautomatic rifle. She said Nuss approached Chabla and "indicated he had taken them against their will and he wanted to turn himself in."

"He seemed like he wanted to turn himself over," added Chabla, who was wearing his police uniform at the store. "He wanted the kids to be OK and let their parents know they were OK."

Linda Vizi, spokeswoman in the FBI's Philadelphia office, said Nuss faces federal kidnapping charges and an initial court appearance Friday.

During the search for the bus, distraught parents arrived at the Oley municipal building to await word.

After the driver's arrest, some of the students dressed in school uniforms -- red burgundy tops and tan pants or skirts -- were taken into the store. Others waited on the bus, where one waved an American flag out a window.

The students, in first through ninth grades, were later taken by bus to a police station.

Nuss had worked for the bus company since September, Albert said.

Cindy Calcagno, assistant transportation director for the Oley Valley School District, said she spoke with Nuss about 7:30 a.m. and he seemed fine. "I had no inclination there, and nothing from the children either," she said. "He loved the kids."

Calcagno said Nuss had not driven a school bus before this year.