Kahtrynn Ann Stephanopoulos, a 34-year-old resident of Berrybush Street in the Mondex, or Daytona North, west of Bunnell, was arrested and charged with felony child abuse in an incident that took place at a bus stop last week. She is accused of joining rather than stopping a fight between her daughter and another teenage girl as students on the bus looked on, bellowed, cheered and taunted, and at least one of them took video of the whole scene. (See below.)
The confrontation took place at the intersection of Mahogany Boulevard and Honeytree Street almost immediately after students were let off the school bus that stopped there on its afternoon run from Flagler Palm Coast High School on Aug. 14.
At least one student still on the bus took a nearly three-minute video of the confrontation on his phone (the voice closest to the cell phone, often cheering, was that of a boy), as the bus idled for the duration of the fight. The bus driver reported the fight to the Sheriff’s Office. The boy taking the video was aware enough that a fight was coming: he had trained his video to the right side of the bus even before the girls appeared. He kept his camera eye steady throughout. “Whatever you do, do not move your head,” he tells someone at one point, “I’m recording perfectly,” an arresting example of social media self-awareness.
Based on the video footage, Stephanopoulos was waiting for the bus at the stop. Her daughter had informed her by text from the bus before it arrived that she was getting into a confrontation with another girl. The two students were arguing on the bus and agreed to fight once they were dropped off, to the point that one of the girls put up her hair in a ponytail in preparation. The two girls had been friends over summer break, but had a falling out.
The video shows the two girls getting off the bus, dropping their bags, standing face to face and arguing briefly, as Stephanopoulos stands by her car a few feet away, in shade, looking on. One of the girls, Ronda, pushes Rousey, the other (those are not their real names), who immediately starts throwing slaps and punches. It is just five seconds before Stephanopoulos gets involved, grabbing Rousey around the waist as Ronda continues to throw punches at Rousey. Stephanopoulos and Rousey end up on the ground, Ronda punching and kicking Rousey before Jean, Rousey’s sister, gets involved in an apparent attempt to wrestle the adult off her sister, only for Ronda to then throw punches at Jean.
Jean desists from the wrestling Stephanopolous and Rousey and starts fighting with Ronda, putting her in a headlock and trying to wrestle her to the ground as an idiot on the bus yells, “America!” and another idiot goes “hell, yeah” repeatedly. The sequence is a credit neither to those Flagler Palm Coast High School students nor to the human race. Jean and Ronda end up wrestling on the ground, a couple of feet away from Stephanopoulos and Rousey, who are still locked in struggle. Stephanopoulos is twice Rousey’s age.
A minute into the confrontation, Jean and Ronda separate. Stephanopoulos and Rousey are still on the ground, with Jean as if standing guard to keep Ronda from going back to attacking Rousey. Another person wanders around the wrestling pair, showing no sign of wanting to stop them. Only then yet another person appears and more assertively separates Stephanopoulos and Rousey, who are back on their feet by then. But he and the other person than walk away. As soon as they do, Rousey reapproaches Stephanopolous, and in this case appears to be the aggressor, throwing a punch or a slap at Stephanopolous, who makes a gesture as if pointing somewhere.
The belligerents separate. Ronda puts her shoes back on. Students on the bus yell out, “her mom’s going to prison,” one of them yelling that out to Ronda, another making a fool of himself with taunting and misogynistic insults. Stephanopolous walks back to the area where the confrontation took place to pick up something she must’ve lost and walks back to her car, addressing Rousey and her sister one last time with curt gestures before getting in her car and driving away. The video stops to the sound of a boy saying he got “crystal clear” footage.
Stephanopolous ended up seeking medical care for her bruises. She told deputies she was unable to open her jaw for several days. The students were suspended–one of them was arrested–sooner than Stephanopolous was arrested. That took place after sheriff’s deputies secured the “crystal clear” video.
“Instead of deescalating the situation, we have a mother who joined in the fray, setting a bad example for her child and those at the bus stop,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in a release. “She certainly won’t receive mother of the year with her actions. Parents need to set the example and not be part of the problem. Luckily, no one was seriously injured, but now a mother is facing serious charges for losing control of her temper.”
In an interview with deputies, Stephanopolous told them that she had gone to the bus as deterrence, to prevent the fight, but that her presence there did not have the desired effect. (In the video, there appears to be no attempt on Stephanopolous’s part to intercede between the two girls before punches are thrown.) But she “expressed her regret and embarrassment about the entire incident,” her arrest report states.
The arrest report states she was arrested on a charge of aggravated child abuse, a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. In the court file, Stephanopolous is charged with felony child abuse, a third-degree felony. She spent spent a night in jail and posted bail on $10,000 bond.
