School bus driver beaten in Milwaukee; 20-year-old woman charged

MILWAUKEE – A 20-year-old Milwaukee woman is accused of hitting a school bus driver on the city's northwest side. Danielle Dobbin is now charged with physical abuse of an elderly person – intentional bodily harm and disorderly conduct.

According to the criminal complaint, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, police responded to a 911 battery call at the intersection of 91st and Acacia Avenue on Milwaukee's northwest side.

When officers arrived at the scene, they spotted a school bus and made contact with the driver. The driver said she was on the bus with two small children “when a black four-door vehicle drove past her on the right side, but then stopped in front of the bus and backed toward the bus,” the complaint states. When the bus driver sounded the horn to warn the driver of the car, “the driver got out of his car and began yelling at (the bus driver),” the complaint states. The bus driver told police that she was not allowed to reverse the school bus without permission from the control center, so she did not move the bus.

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The complaint states that the driver of the car walked up to the bus, yelled at him, opened the driver's side bus door and threatened to take his purse. When the bus driver moved the purse, the complaint says the motorist “swung his closed fist at (the bus driver).” The bus driver said the driver of the car did this several times. The complaint states that the bus driver was “still strapped into the driver's seat with her seatbelt and was unable to escape the strikes.”

When the motorist backed away, the bus driver closed her door and “feared for her safety and that of the children on the bus,” the complaint states. The bus driver called their dispatch center and described the driver of the car and the incident.

The bus driver later directed the officers to the entrance, where she saw the driver get into her vehicle. When officers went to that location, they spoke with defendant Danielle Dobbin. Dobbin told police that the bus was driving close behind her – and “stopped behind Dobbin within 2 feet of her vehicle,” the complaint states. Dobbin said the bus driver refused to back up. The complaint states that Dobbin “stated that she struck (the bus driver) once in the face with her left fist and that the incident would not have occurred if (the bus driver) had locked the driver's door.”

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Police collected surveillance footage from the school bus “which showed the school bus traveling eastbound in the 8900 block of W. Acacia Avenue when a black four-door sedan passed the bus at a high rate of speed on the right side,” the complaint states . Dobbin is later seen “opening the bus driver's door and attacking (the bus driver),” the complaint states.

Dobbin was scheduled to make his first appearance in Milwaukee County Court on Friday, November 8th.