ELLINGTON — A 48-year-old Central Florida man has been arrested after a car he was in rear-ended a school bus carrying five students Thursday afternoon.
The crash occurred after David Alton Daniels Jr. attempted to withdraw money from an account at a nearby bank that did not belong to him and fled with three others in a gold BMW, according to court records.
Daniels was arrested at about 9:30 p.m. Thursday and charged with criminal use of personal identification, grand theft, six counts of forgery of a credit card and four counts of unauthorized possession of a driver's license.
None of the five students who were traveling from Binks Forest Elementary School was injured or required medical attention, according to Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.
The students' parents were called to the scene to pick them up, fire rescue officials said in a tweet. One of the children walked home from the crash site, according to the sheriff's office.
In Florida, grand theft, criminal use of personal identification and unauthorized possession of a driver's license are felony charges of varying degrees. If convicted, the man faces a prison sentence of five to 30 years and fines between $5,000 and $10,000.
What happened leading up to the school bus crash?
About 2 p.m., Daniels went into the Synovus Bank branch on Greenview Shores Boulevard in Wellington and tried to withdraw $3,800 from an account that did not belong to him, deputies say.
The bank teller noticed his signature did not match the one on file, and Daniels provided a passport ID card and a credit card that did not belong to him, according to PBSO. The account he was attempting to take money out of had active fraud alerts and belonged to a man who lives in Parkland, the report said.
When bank employees called the police to report the suspicious withdrawal attempt, Daniels ran out of the bank building, the PBSO report says. He got into the gold BMW, which took off quickly out of the bank parking lot.