[Tom Burns]

There is a report to WEFM of a shooting on one-thousand north near a bus stop. Springfield School is reported on lockdown. Details will be broadcast when confirmed.

[Tom Burns]

Lockdown ended at 10 a.m. School officals expected to make a statement there shortly.

[Tom Burns]

No children were in danger according to school officials at the scene. The shooting report is under investigation by the sheriff's department.

[taxthedeer]

Channel 7 reports that two people were shot and killed.

[MC Born & Raised]

Channel 7 reports that two people were shot and killed.

That's correct. Two Springfield kids' mother was gunned down at a bus stop, apparently in front of the children. A man was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound nearby.

[Tom Burns]

That's correct. Two Springfield kids' mother was gunned down at a bus stop, apparently in front of the children. A man was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound nearby.

That is the same as we had on air with spokesman from sheriff's office. Man is apparently the father.

[adam78sc]

LAPORTE COUNTY ― Two people who died in an apparent murder-suicide Tuesday morning have been identified.

Police say 40-year-old David Streeting shot Tonya Early, his long-term girlfriend, in the chest while she was waiting for a school bus with their children just before 8 a.m.

Early died there at the intersection of 425 West and 1000 North, just east of Michigan City. Streeting fled approximately half a mile away and shot himself in the chest before police could reach his vehicle.

The school bus ― with children from Springfield Elementary onboard ― pulled up just as Early was shot, say police. The bus driver was one of the first to call 911.

School officials have notified parents of the children on the bus. They are currently using crisis counselors to speak with the kids individually and in groups.

The two children of the couple ― one is 8-years-old and the other 10 ― witnessed their mother’s murder. They are now safe with their grandparents.

Stay with WSBT.com and watch WSBT News tonight at 5 and 6 for updates.

[adam78sc]

I went to school with Tanya and her brother Ben. Sad to hear of something so tragic. The family is n my thoughts and prayers.

[Southsider2k12]

What a horrible event, multiplied by the amount of kids who had to view it. Prayers go out to all of the people and families involved in it.

[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...ArticleID=27254

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More about Dave Emerson
Name: Dave Emerson

Age: 68

Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio

Occupation: Michigan City Area Schools bus driver since 2005. He has driven the Springfield Elementary School and Krueger Middle School routes since 2006.

History: Emerson started his career as administrative assistant to basketball legend Al McGuire of Marquette University, then worked for the Harlem Globetrotters before owning a junior hockey team in Canada. After retiring from teaching in Waukesha, Wis., and Milwaukee, for 11 years, he helped run two different paint-it-yourself ceramics stores: the Painted Penguin and Paint-N-Party. He moved to Michigan City in 2003 to join his daughter and grandchildren, who moved here after spending time at a summer home in Beachwalk. In his time here, he has been involved with the schools' Safe Harbor program, middle-school summer basketball programs and served as a middle-school substitute athletic coach. He still serves as a mentor to about 40 Michigan City students.
MCAS bus driver tells of tragic day when Tanya Earley was shot, killed

Alicia Ebaugh
Staff Writer

By Alicia Ebaugh

Staff Writer

SPRINGFIELD TOWNSHIP - Slowing down for his next stop at County Road 425 West, bus driver Dave Emerson could tell something was wrong the morning of Nov. 10. A girl was pacing back and forth across the street.

It was Tanya Earley's 8-year-old daughter, Hannah.

Earley, 30, never let her girls out of the car while they were waiting for Emerson to pick them up for school at Springfield Elementary. Then, he saw the hand of a woman lying on the ground. Maybe she just had a heart attack, he thought.

"My dad just shot my mom," Hannah cried when he opened the bus door.

"Where is he now?" Emerson asked her.

"I don't know, he just left!"

As he pulled closer to Earley's car, he saw a man in the grass.

"Who are you?" Emerson asked him. "What happened?"

"He tried to shoot me and I ran," he shouted. He was later identified as Keith Cole, Earley's new boyfriend. "I think my leg is broken."

Emerson, 68, had a bus full of kindergarten through fifth-graders behind him. The situation was dangerous, but he couldn't leave.

"What happened that morning, it was surreal, like I was going through one of our training videos," he said. "I don't remember doing a lot of the things I did. All I remember is needing to help her."

Making sure the bus was far enough away from the car so the children wouldn't see the injured woman, he turned it off, activated the emergency flashers and told the oldest ones to herd everyone to the back of the bus and sit quietly. Then, he got out and shut the door.

Scooping up Hannah, he walked around to the driver's side of the vehicle. Earley was slumped on the concrete, unconscious, a gunshot wound in her chest, gasping for breath.

Earley's older daughter, Jennifer, 10, was sitting in the backseat, talking to a 911 dispatcher on her mom's cell phone.

"She was very calm," Emerson said. "But I knew I had to get the girls out of there. They were potentially in danger."

A man he recognized as a neighbor of the girls' grandparents drove up to see what was going on.

"Should I take them to their grandparents' house?" the man asked.

"Yes, take them, they'll be safe there," Emerson replied.

He took the cell phone from Jennifer before they left and held Earley's hand. A few passersby stopped to ask what was wrong, but they drove off when he told him. He didn't blame them. After all, it wasn't safe.

Emerson moved aside Earley's zip-up sweatshirt to see her wound. He knew it was severe. She was dying.

Moments later, the neighbor came back with the girls.

"He's at the house," the man hurriedly said. "David's at their house."

"Then go that way," Emerson replied, pointing down 1000 North. They drove off, pulling into a driveway about a half mile away.

Emerson walked back to the bus, still on the phone with 911. He needed to alert the bus dispatchers to the situation from a radio on the bus, too.

"A woman has been shot, and the man who did it is down the street. He's at the third house on the right," he told them. "He's armed and dangerous. You need to come now!"

It wasn't until later he learned David Streeting, Earley's ex-boyfriend and the father of their two daughters, shot himself outside the home in his Jeep. At the back of the bus, the children sat in silence.

"The older children really took charge," he said. "They made it easy. Without them, there really could have been hysteria."

He got out of the bus again, closed the door, walked back to where Earley lay and sat down. He didn't want her to die alone.

"She's fading fast," Emerson told the 911 dispatcher. As he was holding her hand, he felt it go limp.

"I think she's gone."

The dispatcher told him to start CPR, but then the first firefighter pulled up in a Jeep. Police and sheriff's deputies weren't far behind.

"I had no idea how long I was there. At that point, I knew I had to get those kids out of there so they wouldn't have to see anything else," he said. "I called in and asked if I should take them home, but the bus dispatchers told me to take them to school."

They were met at Springfield by the MCAS crisis team, made up of grief counselors and district administrators. They came aboard the bus to talk to the students. They also came to Emerson's home later that morning. Emerson was given the rest of the day off - then the rest of the week.

"I think I repeated 'I'm OK' about a hundred times," Emerson said. "And I was, that first day."

But the next few days he had trouble sleeping. Everything became all too real.

"I had a personal relationship with her, with those girls. I've seen them almost every morning for three years, and I've talked to Tanya whenever I had an issue to discuss," Emerson said.

"I'm a dad. I have two girls and a boy. They're adults now, but it still hits you. It's really hard," he said.

Emerson credits Virginia Martin, his training instructor, for the rigorous training that prepared him for such emergencies.

"I've had so many other bus drivers tell me, 'I don't think I could have done what you did,' but no. They could," Emerson said. "They all have the same training as I do."

The videos they have to watch cover every possible situation, even hijacking, and are sometimes a little cheesy, he admitted. But Martin gives several quizzes and makes the drivers answer why they should do something, so they understand and remember it, Emerson said. There are also drills - but nothing like this.

"We're very proud of what he's done. He's a hero," said Kevin Neafie, MCAS director of transportation. "He deserves recognition."

But if you ask Emerson, he'd disagree.

Emerson's response?

"In my heart," he said, "I knew I could not have left unless I saw their dad coming back. I truly just did what I was supposed to do."


Emerson gets standing ovation from board

MICHIGAN CITY - Bus driver Dave Emerson received a standing ovation at Tuesday's Michigan City Area Schools board meeting after he was honored for his service to the school and his students on the tragic morning of Nov. 10.

"We never know how we will react in a crisis, but in Dave's case, he reacted just as he had been trained by our transportation staff," Interim Superintendent Carla Iacona said. "When he came upon the scene of this incident, he kept a cool head, he secured his bus and kept children out of harm's way, and he assisted the adults who had been injured."

Iacona presented Emerson with a framed certificate, thanking him and the other bus drivers - several of whom were at the meeting - who worked together to deliver the students to school safely.

"The way Dave handled the situation was wonderful," co-worker Dave Hack, Michigan City, said. "I'm proud to work with him."