FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. – A Flagler County school bus driver accused of driving drunk with 40 middle school students admitted Monday he arrived to his court hearing impaired upon being questioned by the judge.
The judge said 60-year-old Mark Michael McNeill’s case was “in danger of moving forward” as he appeared to be impaired in court.
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“You know what? I am impaired,” McNeill told the judge after being asked to get tested.
Mark McNeil, the former Flagler County school bus driver who was arrested for driving 40+ students drunk, was in court for a plea hearing today but was taken into custody instead for testing - the judge believes he was impaired in court & he admitted he was. @news6wkmg pic.twitter.com/kNZtgXC4rC
— Molly Reed (@Mollyreednews) June 13, 2022
He was initially arrested on Feb. 10 after a Flagler County school district employee chased him down his route and stopped him before alerting the sheriff’s office.
Deputies said the Ormond Beach driver had picked up approximately 40 students from the middle school and proceeded with his afternoon route in a bus not assigned to him.
According to a probable cause affidavit, McNeill was observed smelling like alcohol by a Buddy Taylor Middle School employee around 1 p.m. The employee then reported it about an hour later to the director of transportation in the Flagler school district, Dontarrious Rowns.
McNeill ignored multiple attempts by the school transportation’s to contact him via radio as he dropped off students at their stops, the affidavit shows. According to investigators, McNeill’s boss eventually found him along his route near the intersection of Karas Trail and Karat Path when he “exited the bus and fell to the ground complaining he couldn’t breathe.” Flagler County firefighters responded and took McNeill to a local hospital, where he was met with and arrested by deputies, who detected a strong odor of alcohol on his breath.
During his arrest, McNeill can be heard on a deputy’s body camera yelling at deputies. Upon conducting a breath sample test at the Flagler County jail, investigators determined McNeill had a blood alcohol level of .32 and .31, which is four times the legal limit in Florida.
McNeill pled guilty to charges of child neglect, DUI at 0.15 or with a person under 18, and resisting an officer without violence. He was sentenced to 1.5 years in the Florida State Prison, followed by 3.5 years of drug offender probation with residential treatment.
The plea offer was changed last month after he was rebooked into jail on no bond for admitting at a hearing that he was impaired, according to the state attorney’s office.