'STAYUMBL' driver says Durham school bus cut her off, acted aggressively

Diana Taije Mems, 51, faces charges of reckless driving, improper passing and impeding traffic in the April 12 incident on Snow Hill Road.

Bus driver Jacquanna Barrett-Laws said she had just dropped students off at Lucas Middle School that morning and was driving on Snow Hill Road when she noticed a silver car passing her on the left, despite a double yellow line. When the car got out in front of the bus, Barrett-Laws said, the driver began pumping the brakes and eventually came to a complete stop, all while holding her cellphone out the window.

"I noticed her license plate, and that was just enough for me to be a little suspect," she said. "It's all over social media – STAYUMBL, the license plate, beware, beware, beware."

WRAL News learned that Mems changed her license plate after being cited in the Durham case.

Barrett-Laws posted her own video of the encounter on Facebook and later sent it to police. It shows Mems outside her car in the middle of the street holding up her cellphone and pointing at both the bus and her car.

Barrett-Laws said she honked the horn at Mems to get her to move, and when she didn't, she backed the bus up and drove around her to continue with her daily duties.

Durham police Investigator Howard Henry, who had been looking into numerous complaints about the STAYUMBL car for months, said he decided to charge Mems after speaking with Barrett-Laws and reviewing her video. Mems initially said she had loaned the car to someone else but later admitted to being behind the wheel during the bus incident, Henry said.

During a meeting with Mems to serve the citations, Henry said, she told him she drove close to the shoulder because people had tried to run her off the road before. She said she was trying to turn left, not block the bus, and that she stopped because she thought the bus driver was acting aggressively, he said.

Durham police: 'STAYUMBL' driver believes everyone else trying to run her off road

Mems took the stand in her own defense, saying that the school bus pulled out in front of her, forcing her to swerve to avoid a collision.

"I just kept going and just chalked it up," she testified, adding that she then noticed the bus gaining on her from behind. "She never [braked] or anything, and I put on my left turn signal to turn left, and as I was slowing down, she just kept coming."

Mems said the bus' horn was blaring, so she thought something was wrong with her car and the driver was trying to alert her. So, she got out of her car and checked and the bus came up right behind the car.

"What is her problem? Why is she blaring? I'm pointing at my car, like, 'You see something?'" she said. "I couldn't even say anything because I open my mouth and she's baaaaaaa [on the horn]."

Mems said Barrett-Laws was making obscene gestures at her, and in between horn blasts, she heard profanities thrown her way too.

"I thought she had one too many," she said.

Defense attorney John Fitzpatrick played Mems' video of the encounter in court, and Mems can be heard yelling that the bus pulled out in front of her.

Barrett-Laws said Mems' video showing her driving around her car was sent to her supervisors at Durham Public Schools, who advised her not to testify in the case because she could lose her commercial driver's license. Henry told her she didn't do anything wrong trying to get around a car stopped in the middle of the road, but Durham County Assistant District Attorney Austin Braxton subpoenaed her anyway to secure her testimony.

"The Durham Public Schools administrators in question completely deny the allegation that they attempted to convince Ms. Barrett-Laws not to testify," school district spokesman Chip Sudderth said in an email to WRAL News.

Defense testimony is expected to continue Wednesday morning.

Before resting his case, Braxton called Durham defense attorney Daniel Meier as a witness to demonstrate Mems' encounter with the Durham school bus wasn't an isolated incident.

Meier said he was driving home on N.C. Highway 147 and N.C. Highway 55 on April six when the STAYUMBL car cut in front of him and other drivers several times. He said even called 911 while driving to report the situation and later called Durham police and the Durham County Sheriff's Office to alert watch commanders.

The Wake County District Attorney's Office and the state Department of Insurance are reviewing Mems' history to determine if any of the dozens of crashes she's been involved in since 2000 have been staged to collect an insurance payout.

Authorities have said that Mems has used 18 aliases and had a fake address on her driver's license. Freeman has asked the state Division of Motor Vehicles to merge the records of Mems' aliases to make sure authorities have her accurate driving record.