John Washington III Asks Whether School Bus Enforcement Has Become Entrapment — and Pledges Federal Investigations

John Washington III turned on Monday to a question he framed as a test of what traffic enforcement is for. In a public statement headed "School Bus Safety or Government Entrapment?", the 2028 presidential candidate raised reports and allegations involving old, inactive school buses allegedly being used to catch drivers who pass when the buses' stop signs are activated — buses, he wrote, that are allegedly no longer being used to transport children, yet are being operated in ways that result in traffic citations.

He was explicit about where he stands on the underlying law. School bus laws were created to protect children, he wrote, not to create another revenue stream for city and state governments, and he stated that he fully supports protecting children: any driver who illegally passes a school bus and endangers children should be held accountable. His objection, he wrote, is to the alleged tactic — "there is a difference between protecting children and deliberately setting people up to receive traffic tickets." If city governments and police departments are deliberately approving such tactics simply to collect more money from hardworking Americans, he wrote, that is a serious abuse of government authority.

His pledge was procedural as much as rhetorical. Under his administration, he wrote, the allegations will not be ignored: he will push for federal investigations, where legally authorized, into cities, states and law enforcement agencies accused of deliberately manufacturing traffic violations for financial gain, and will pursue accountability through every lawful avenue available, including federal civil rights enforcement where violations of federal law are established. No city government, police department or state official, he wrote, should be above accountability.

"The government works for the people. The people do not exist to fund the government through deceptive enforcement practices," he wrote. If an inactive school bus is being used primarily to generate citations rather than protect children, he argued, the public deserves to know who authorized it, why it was authorized, and whether those citations were lawful.

The statement names no city, department or specific case, and the desk reports the allegations as allegations — his post is the only source for this story, and no agency has been asked about a specific claim because his statement makes none. What it does is put a marker down on an enforcement practice he says crosses the line from safety into revenue, and commit his candidacy to investigating it if he wins.