Woman who tells of inciting girls who "go a-tumblin" now tumbles toward a sentencing date.
By COLLEEN JENKINS, Times Staff Writer
Published September 19, 2007
TAMPA -- Shayla Muldrow, chewing gum and dressed in a blazer on the witness stand, recalled the March morning she boarded her daughters' school bus.
She wasn't planning trouble, she said. She just wanted to put an end to the bullying her 9-year-old daughter had been experiencing on bus rides to and from Booker T. Washington Elementary School.
"I wanted to talk it out," Muldrow said Tuesday. "You don't have to solve your problems by fighting."
A good idea, in theory. But anyone who has seen the March 2 videotape from Bus No. 3866 knows that's not how things worked out.
Muldrow, 26, helped her daughter shed her backpack -- "I'm not going to let her fight with her book bag on," she testified -- and instructed her to "handle it" with the 10-year-old girl who had slapped her daughter two days before.
"They go a-tumblin,'" said Muldrow, who blew a bubble on the stand. "I stepped out of the way and just watched."
She watched again Tuesday afternoon as six jurors filed into the courtroom after 90 minutes of deliberation and declared her guilty of misdemeanor charges of trespassing and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
County Judge John Conrad will sentence Muldrow on Thursday morning. She faces up to two years in county jail.
She has been there before, having accumulated 15 arrests before the March 2 bus incident, which was broadcast across the country.
She also spent a day in jail Sept. 5 after being arrested on new charges of driving with a suspended or revoked license and for attaching improper tags to her vehicle.
Her attorneys argued Tuesday that the case of the bus confrontation was a "rush to judgment."
They depicted their client as a concerned parent who had tired of her daughter getting pushed around after two months on the bus. Even the substitute driver for the route testified that he had complained to his superiors on multiple occasions about the rowdiness of its riders.
On Feb. 28, Muldrow's 9-year-old came home "screaming crying," she said.
A girl had slapped her across the cheek. Muldrow decided to escort her daughter onto the bus two days later.
The video camera at the front of the bus captured the scene that unfolded. Before jurors saw the video, Muldrow's attorneys admitted it wasn't easy to watch.
"First of all, where's the girl who slapped my girl?" Muldrow asked as she boarded the bus behind her two daughters.
A 10-year-old in the back raised her hand.
An argument ensued. Children yelled, and Muldrow yelled back.
The girl from the back of the bus testified Tuesday that she heard Muldrow tell her daughter "to come hit me." The girl, now 11, walked to the witness stand with her finger in her mouth and her Dora the Explorer book bag on her back. She spoke so softly that the judge had to ask her multiple times to talk louder.
She admitted she had hit Muldrow's daughter before but looked confused when Assistant Public Defender Brent Selph questioned her using legal terms such as "deposition," "sworn testimony," and "the state."
Muldrow's attorneys characterized the child as the aggressor. They blamed the bus driver for letting the situation get out of hand.
"It's an awful scene," Assistant Public Defender Cordel Batchelor said. "It's shocking. It shouldn't have happened. And Muldrow didn't intend for this to happen."
Muldrow said so herself on the video as she walked toward the front of the bus after the fight. Then she turned back around and continued yelling at the children who yelled at her.
Colleen Jenkins can be reached at cjenkins@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3337.