JACKSON, Miss. -- Video that shows a student tackling a classmate with a loaded handgun on a school bus shows how cameras mounted in buses can help officials learn about bullying, WAPT in Jackson, Miss., reported.

The video from a Yazoo County bus Kaleb Eulls tackling a classmate. Last week, the district attorney for Yazoo County decided not to charge the girl as an adult, in part because of what he said he saw on the videotape.

The Yazoo County Schools Superintendent said the school district bought the cameras five years ago. The superintendent said after the cameras were installed, fights on school buses decreased, as did other discipline problems.

The video became critical to investigators as they pieced together what led up to the incident, including claims that the girl was bullied. Investigators said that without the video, they would have had to rely on what the bus driver could see in her rearview mirror as she drove or on what the children riding on the bus could see from their seats.

Instead, investigators had the perfect witness. Later, they reviewed several days of previous bus rides because the girl said students on the bus bullied her. Investigators said they found not proof to support the girl’s allegations.

“You hear more and more of these reports,” Jackson Public Schools Counselor Leona Bishop said. “You are alarmed and you know, we need to do something about it.”

Recently, Parents for Public Schools brought JPS counselors to parents to talk about bullying and cyber-bullying. The counselors told parents how to recognize when there children are being bullied and to determine whether their child is a bully. The counselors said the school bus is a prime place for bullying to occur.

“There are 40 or more children on the bus and one person watching -- really just transporting,” Bishop said. “It does open up doors for bullying to occur.”

Bishop said parents should keep an open line of communication with their children. She said it makes them more likely to tell them about bullying.

Yazoo County has about 37 buses and all of them are outfitted with cameras. But not every school district can afford to mount cameras on school buses. “With the budget crunch and the shortfall of funds for the state, it is extremely difficult for us to have the funds that we need to buy cameras,” Williams said.

This year JPS saw a $6.1 million reduction in state funding. In response, the School Board cut a 40-year-old music program and may eliminate all of its school nurse positions.

Williams said his department assigns the cameras to buses where discipline problems have been reported. He said JPS can move the cameras as needed.

But some JPS students, like Franklin Turner, who said he was bullied, said the real answer to combating bullying is for parents to teach their children not to do it and to teach them how to respond to bullies.

“Don't do it to your siblings. Don't do it to classmates, because you don't know what people are going through,” Turner said. “It’s just a catastrophe waiting to happen.”

JPS said it’s searching for grants to pay for more bus cameras.