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Police: Students safe after knife-wielding man hijacks Arkansas school bus

Posted at 11:42 AM, Oct 17, 2013
and last updated 2013-10-17 12:04:22-04

(CNN) — A man with a knife hijacked a school bus in central Arkansas Thursday morning, taking 11 elementary school students on a wild detour that police ended after a roughly 10-mile chase, authorities said.

School bus Hijacking Suspect

Arkansas police said this man hijacked a school bus with children on board.

The hijacker was detained after the incident, which began in the Little Rock suburb of Jacksonville and ended in Cabot, Jacksonville police Capt. Kenny Boyd said.

No one — including the 11 students of Pinewood Elementary School in Jacksonville — was injured, Boyd said.

The incident began with the man allegedly trying to take a woman’s car in Jacksonville, Boyd said. The bus had stopped in nearby, and the man abandoned his attempt on the car and boarded the bus, according to Boyd.

The bus then took off. It’s unclear at that point whether the hijacker was driving or was instructing the driver, Boyd said.

The woman in the car called police, who eventually found the bus pursued it north to Cabot.

The hijacker was driving the bus when police stopped it, roughly 20 minutes after the hijacking began, according to Boyd.

“We were able to get the bus stopped. The suspect was taken into custody, and nobody was injured,” he said.

An office worker who answered the phone at the school Thursday morning said parents were being notified.

Boyd said investigators don’t yet know why the bus was hijacked. No charges had yet been filed.