Video: Mom’s ‘heart sank’ watching unlicensed driver defy bus signals and nearly hit her son

Law enforcement agencies have identified and charged the pickup truck driver they say nearly hit one of two students getting off a school bus two weeks ago in east-central Minnesota.

Now they just need to find her.

Brianna C. Johnson, 28, of Willow River, Minn., was charged Tuesday in Pine County District Court with a gross misdemeanor for failing to obey a school bus' signal arm and a misdemeanor for reckless driving for swerving around a stopped van and zipping past the bus.

Video from a bus-mounted camera provided by the Willow River School District to the Sheriff's Office showed a girl exiting the bus on County Road 41 just north of town on the afternoon of Dec. 21 and walking calmly across the opposite lane to a driver in a waiting vehicle.

However, her younger brother heading to the same vehicle had to make a mad dash to the other side as the pickup swerved onto the shoulder and nearly went in a ditch as it bore down on the youngster.

All this happened as the bus' stop arm and red flashing lights were activated, the video showed.

A warrant has been issued for Johnson's arrest. Chief Sheriff's Deputy Scott Grice said early Wednesday evening that "you'd hope that she'd turn herself in. With her face on social media, she must know she's on a warrant."

Johnson had her license revoked last month for refusing to be tested by law enforcement for driving while impaired during a traffic stop in Pine County in late October, said state Department of Public Safety spokesman Mark Karstedt.

In the school bus incident, Maggie Borchardt was in a driveway perpendicular to the road and saw her 11-year-old daughter cross first, followed by her 8-year-old son.

The pickup driver "never slowed down," Borchardt told the Star Tribune. "I honestly thought the truck was going in the ditch initially. It wasn't until I saw the truck make [its] way back to the road that my heart sank. I am so thankful they both saw it and ran. I couldn't have got out of my vehicle or yelled quick enough to make any difference."

Borchardt said her son was unnerved by the incident, "especially as he was well aware how close that was to a different outcome. Hard to not imagine the what-ifs and how lucky we were to have both kids walk away from that."

According to the charges:

The driver of the van told law enforcement that he tried to follow the fleeing motorist, but he lost the pickup despite reaching 70 miles per hour. He said he gave up the chase because he had children with him.

Sheriff's Deputy Aaron Borchardt, identified by Maggie Borchardt as her ex-husband and father of the two children who exited the bus, spotted the pickup unoccupied outside a nearby home. A check of its license plate told the Sheriff's Office that the registration was expired and its owner had died. Two people in the home said they had never seen the pickup before.

Six days later, the Sheriff's Office posted on social media a plea to the public for information leading to the pickup driver.

One tipster said she knew that Johnson had been using the pickup recently. Another reported seeing the vehicle outside a home in Willow River where Johnson lives with her boyfriend. Yet another tipster told law enforcement who owns the pickup.

Johnson had borrowed the pickup from the owner on the day of the bus incident to go to a store because hers had broken down, the charges said. However, she never returned the truck to the man.