Laidlaw Driver Charged With Carrying a Gun

A Los Angeles school bus driver has been charged with carrying a loaded revolver on a bus in the third arrest of a Laidlaw Transit driver in less than a month, authorities said.

Wesley Reed Jr., 51, of Los Angeles was charged by the city attorney’s office Tuesday with one count each of carrying a concealed weapon and carrying a loaded weapon in public. Both counts are misdemeanors.

Prosecutors said Reed was arrested Jan. 19 by police who observed his yellow bus parked in the 400 block of East 40th Place in South-Central Los Angeles. When they approached the bus, police saw him take a loaded .38-caliber derringer out of his right pants pocket and place it on a bus seat. Reed told the officers that he planned to sell the gun because he needed $10, Deputy City Atty. John Wilson said.

No students were on the bus at the time, Wilson said.

Reed was freed on $1,000 bail pending arraignment in Municipal Court Feb. 13. He has been suspended indefinitely from his job, said Dave Daley, vice president of operations for Laidlaw.

Another Laidlaw driver, whose bus crashed into a pickup truck and injured three people, was arrested in San Diego Feb. 2 for drunken driving. A third Laidlaw driver was arrested in Encino last month when he showed up drunk at an elementary school where he was to pick up 57 children.

Wilson said Reed had been convicted of drunk driving in 1981, caused an accident in 1988 and was involved in another crash in 1989. He was not driving a school bus in those incidents, Wilson said.