Geelong school bus rammed in dramatic police pursuit

Students returning to school were confronted with a dramatic police pursuit and shots fired at a school bus, but one principal said it was excitement rather than fear that prompted pre-class chatter on Friday.

Students at Sacred Heart College in Geelong were heading home from their first day back at school for the new year on Thursday afternoon when they were left cowering in a bus as police opened fire on a vehicle driving erratically in Newtown.

A police helicopter spotted the stolen Kia near the intersection of the Princes Highway and Roebuck Street about 3.40pm, before the car reversed into the bus.

Footage taken by a student onboard shows the moment the Kia collided with the bus, before police started shooting at the vehicle. In the video, someone can be heard yelling “everyone down, everyone down”, as other students wailed.

But speaking to ABC Radio Melbourne on Friday morning, Andy Kuppe, CEO of Mercy Education, said the children returning to the school were very chatty about what had happened yesterday afternoon.

“The kids are great,” he said. “I was just talking with Anna Negro, who’s the principal of Sacred Heart Geelong, which was one of the schools involved.

“She’s at the gate greeting the girls this morning to make sure that the community’s OK. As you’d expect, there’s a level of excitement and chat about all that’s happened on their first day back at school from the break.”

Kuppe said that for the girls, it was OK to be excited or wanting to speak about the incident, “but for some of them, it would have been traumatic”.

“For hopefully only a very few or none, it might have triggered a memory of some other sort of trauma in their life,” he said.

“[The school will be] be monitoring the girls to see if there’s any change in their behaviour or mood and responding accordingly.”

Kuppe also praised the bus driver for their quick actions, saying, “The bus driver was just fantastic, calmed the girls down.”

When asked about the driver’s heroic efforts, charter bus company McHarry’s declined to comment.

Police said the two occupants of the Kia, a 37-year-old man of no fixed address and a 43-year-old NSW woman were both arrested and taken to hospital under police guard. The woman has since been charged with handling stolen goods, and released on bail to appear in court in March. The man remains in hospital with a gunshot wound to the arm.