Man pleads guilty to firing on school bus, wounding driver

MINNEAPOLIS – A Minnesota man accused of shooting at a school bus on a snowy highway, wounding the driver, has pleaded guilty to first-degree assault.

Thirty-two-year-old Kenneth Lilly of St. Paul waived his self-defence claims Monday. He faces up to eight years in prison.

According to the complaint, bus driver Thomas Benson was trying to merge onto an interstate near downtown Minneapolis during a snowstorm on Feb. 5. The bus scraped Lilly’s car, although Benson was unaware.

Lilly, who was wearing his security guard uniform, pulled a handgun and fired five shots into the bus windshield, wounding the driver’s arm and grazing his head. A girl on the bus was not hurt.

KSTP-TV reports the shooting left Benson deaf in one ear and unable to continue working as a bus driver due to nerve damage in his hand.