On May 18, 2023, a Garland ISD bus driver who goes by Reva was on her daily morning bus ride picking up middle-schoolers for school when she spotted something was off at one of her stops. A man was trying to lure one of her students inside a car.
“This guy is hanging out of his car window, trying to get her attention and whatever he was saying to her frightened her,” Reva told CBS News. “I just thought this is not right.”
According to CBS News, the student ran toward the school bus, and, once inside, she told Reva the man was making her feel uncomfortable and trying to get her inside his car. "I pulled up, open the doors, got her on the bus and he gave me a real mean look and he pulled off," Reva said.
Reva took action right away and called dispatch to contact the police. But moments later, she spotted the car again and thought on her feet. Using the bus to block the intersection where the man was driving, she forced him to drive in front of the bus. “There’s a camera on the front of the bus, so I positioned the bus in such a way that the camera could get the rear license plate.”
Reva’s quick thinking might have saved the student from a dangerous situation. After Reva successfully captured the car’s license plate and contacted the police, it was revealed that the man was Jonathan Haung Trinh, a suspect in an indecent assault case in Richardson.
According to NBCDFW, Trinh was wanted in Richardson for allegedly groping a woman at a coffee shop just the day before encountering the school bus driver. “I'm happy that they got him. Because who knows if he could have done something to somebody else again. And we stopped him,” Reva said.
On Tuesday, Reva was honored by the Transportation Departments’s Safety and Training Manager Tim Logan. “We transport over 14,000 students a day. But we're especially proud of Ms. Reva and the actions and precautions that she took to help this student avoid a possibly very dangerous situation,” Logan said (via NBCDFW).
"When they get on this bus they're my kids, and I'm going to take care of them," Reva said, offering advice to kids waiting for the bus. “Be aware of your surroundings, don't be on the phone… especially when you're waiting to get on the bus."
