Sex offender found on St. Paul bus during field trip

BY JOE KELLY

Police arrested a sex offender on Thursday after finding him on a school bus parked at Chelsea Heights Elementary School after a field trip, KARE 11 reported.

Twenty-six students and four teachers were on the bus ride back when a teacher noticed Friedrich sitting in the back, the Pioneer Press reported. 61-year-old Michael Charles Friedrich was arrested after the bus driver alerted dispatch to call the police while on the way back to the elementary school from the Walker Art Center, according to KARE 11.

When police reached the school, they found out Friedrich was a Level 3 sex offender, according to the Pioneer Press. News outlets reported that Friedrich did not engage in any sexual activity during this incident.

In 2011, Friedrich pleaded guilty to accusations of masturbating near elementary children on a Minneapolis school bus, the Pioneer Press reported. The Pioneer Press reported that he has also been convicted of sexually assaulting the teenage son of a woman he dated, and been found sitting in an empty bus in Rosemount in 1996, and at the Minnesota Zoo in 2004.

"Students were under the supervision of school staff at all times," said Kevin J. Burns, Director of Communications for St. Paul Public Schools. "St. Paul Public Schools is conducting its own investigation to learn more about what happened and to strengthen our bus safety procedures."

However, the Pioneer Press reported that Friedrich is already released from jail. Parents of the children who were on the bus say they are furious.