Queens parents say driver abandoned children on school bus

SOUTH OZONE PARK, Queens (WABC) -- Parents in Queens say their children were abandoned on a school bus.

They say the driver pulled over and ran away in South Ozone Park on Friday afternoon.

The kids were on their way home from school.

Video shows the bus on the side of the street.

According to parents who spoke to Eyewitness News, near 134th Street around 3:30 p.m. Friday, the bus driver appeared to get a phone call, pulled over to the side of the street, and left the bus, leaving them abandoned there for as long as 30 minutes.

Sources tell Eyewitness News that the driver was wanted for allegedly assaulting his 17-year-old daughter.

Detectives came to the school looking for him, but he'd already left with seven kids aboard the bus to take them home.

That's when the school called him to find out where he was and informed him that the police were looking for him.

Sources say, that's when the driver went on the run.

One of the kids called a parent. The parents then sent word to one another and came to pick up their kids.

"I feel angry and hurt because it's our kids, you know?" a parent said. "But thank God there are nice people around who saw them and took care of them until the parents got here."

"The bus driver pulled up, he was driving erratically behind me. Almost ran into me. Then he pulled over, he hopped off the bus. And he ran to the corner and ran around the corner and another young child ran behind him," a woman said. "I had no idea there were children on the bus. I continued to the store. I came back and I saw the kids asking for help. That is when I found out that he left all those children on that bus."

Eyewitness News is waiting for word from officials at the school as well as the Central Islamic Organization of New York which owns the bus.

The driver remains on the run.