Drunken Cheyenne School Bus Driver Charged With 19 Counts, Trial Set For August

A Cheyenne school bus driver who was arrested earlier this year for driving a bus full of children while intoxicated is facing 19 misdemeanor charges and will go to trial in July, court filings showed.

EF
Ellen Fike

June 17, 20222 min read

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A Cheyenne school bus driver who was arrested earlier this year for driving a bus full of students while intoxicated is facing 19 misdemeanor charges and will go to trial in August, court filings show.

David Richard Williams, 60, faces one charge of driving under the influence, 11 reckless endangering charges and seven charges of endangering children.

He will go to trial on Aug. 18 in Goshen County Circuit Court, a delay from the original trial date of Thursday. The delay was to allow prosecutors to share their evidence against Williams with his attorneys, according to court documents.

Williams was arrested by a Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper in February while transporting Laramie County School District No. 1 students to a speech and debate tournament in Spearfish, South Dakota.

After he was stopped, he failed a field sobriety test and was then arrested.

His breath test showed Williams had a blood-alcohol concentration of around 0.15%, significantly higher than the level of 0.04% allowed for a commercial motor vehicle driver and almost twice the level of 0.08% at which the driver of a regular vehicle is considered intoxicated.

In-vehicle video showed Williams to be drinking alcohol both before and while driving the students, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The FMCSA revoked Williams’ commercial driver’s license in March.

Prior to the February arrest, Williams had no violations on his driving record, the Wyoming Department of Transportation previously told Cowboy State Daily.

LCSD1 officials have declined to comment on the situation with Williams, citing personnel reasons. However, the district has implemented new mandatory drug and alcohol awareness training following Williams’ arrest.

The annual recertification class will become part of the training that existing bus drivers are required to take every August during their three-day in-service training prior to the start of the school year.

Under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, drivers with a commercial driver’s license are subject to a variety of prohibitions on the use of alcohol prior to and while driving CMVs, including a prohibition on using any alcohol within four hours of driving and a prohibition on driving with an alcohol concentration of 0.04% or greater.    

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Ellen Fike

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