They said nothing as police led them to court, but police say three teenagers talked plenty of trash as they engaged in a cruel act of hate.
Their victim's only crime? They thought he was gay.
"This young person was subjected apparently to bullying on a routine basis," Lawrence Mulvey, Nassau County Police Commissioner, said.
Police say the bullying escalated to violence at dismissal time Tuesday afternoon.
The buses were pulling out of Career Prep High School in Hicksville, when police say 18 year old David Spencer, 16 year old Chase Morrison and 16 year old Roy Wilson pushed and slapped and kicked the teen, leaving him with a visible bruise.
On the way back to school Wednesday morning, investigators say Spencer and Morrison targeted the teen again. He didn't report it to school administrators until later that afternoon. He told police the harassment actually had been going on for weeks while riding the bus.
Detectives are left with one key question.
"Why the police were not alerted to the incident? It was apparent to the bus driver the day before that there was some sort of an incident," Mulvey said.
The alleged attacks happened aboard a first student bus, which is staffed by a driver and a monitor. Police say they did stop the bus during the first incident, but never called cops. A company spokesperson admitted that is standard procedure.
"It's still under investigation. We're taking everything seriously. We're taking a look at it very closely," a company spokesman said.
The whole incident is just the latest in a spate of similar cases involving anti-gay bias, from the suicide of a Rutgers student who'd faced online ridicule to the gang assault on two teens in the Bronx.
