September 16 – Drunk Florida Man Stole School Bus For Joyriding Trip to Miami

In what could have been a mission from the next title in the Grand Theft Auto video game series, which will feature a fictionalized version of South Florida, a 32-year-old man from Land O’Lakes stole a yellow school bus from the Hillsborough County School District and took it on a Saturday night joyride from Tampa to Miami. In a news segment aired by WFLA-TV, the Tampa Bay NBC affiliate, troopers from the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) explained that Daniel Saez admitted to having been drunk and high when he stole the bus from the parking facility of King High School in Tampa.

The fleet manager of the school district noticed the bus was missing when classes resumed on Monday morning, and he promptly reported the theft to the Tampa Police Department. Using real-time data from the GPS unit in the bus plus footage from traffic monitoring cameras, police officers located Saez driving northbound on I-75 in Sarasota County. Data from the device’s location history indicated that Saez not only drove to Miami but also paid highway tolls and even stopped at gas stations for refueling and snacks.

Saez was pulled over by FHP troopers near one of the I-75 exits leading to Downtown Sarasota. He had already driven 300 miles to Miami and back; he said that he started feeling bad about stealing the bus, so he was driving back to return it. He was only 60 miles away from King High School when he was stopped and arrested. A few days before this incident, WFLA-TV reported on another Florida man driving a bus chartered by parents of high school students on a graduation trip to Daytona Beach; he was drunk and running red lights, so he had to be overpowered and removed from the driver’s seat.