Yet Still Going to School

Drunk man rides school bus

By Sonny Turner
sonny@athensnews-courier.com

Elaine Pack was alarmed when she learned an intoxicated 21-year-old man, pretending to be a student, flagged down a school bus and rode to Owens Elementary school with her 13-year-old son and other students.


She filed a complaint with county school officials after the incident Wednesday morning.

“You never know, he could have had a gun or some other weapon,” Pack said. “I’m concerned because I think the children on that bus could have faced real danger there.”

But a Limestone County Sheriff’s investigator said the bus driver, who allowed the man to get on the bus at Smith-Gover Road in western Limestone County, had no way of knowing the man was not a student.

Eric Allen Clem, of 22268 Sugar Way Road, Elkmont, was arrested Wednesday after Principal Cleo Miller saw him wandering the parking lot at Owens. He was charged with public intoxication and removed from the grounds.

“He could have passed for a student,” said Lt. Fred Sloss of the Limestone County Sheriff’s Department. “He told the bus driver he was a student at West Limestone High School, but when he got to Owens Elementary he got off the bus,” said Sloss. “The principal noticed him wandering in the parking lot and called the school resource officer.”

Pack said her son was the next to get on the bus.

“He said he got on and went to the back of the bus and sat down. He said the man then got up and walked to the back and sat down beside him,” Pack said. “My son told me the man kept asking for cigarettes. He said it was pretty obvious something wasn’t right – that he appeared to be drinking.”

Clem has previous arrests for burglary and possession of marijuana, Sloss said.

Clem told Officer Dean Murray he had taken some pain medication before flagging down the school bus. Investigators believed he was drunk.