Weeks before a Tennessee school bus overturned and killed six children, worried students complained about their driver’s erratic behavior behind the wheel — one even eerily predicting, “It feels like the bus is going to flip over.”
At least two students wrote letters this month to the school officials, warning them of Johnthony Walker’s speeding habits, according to records released by Hamilton County School District Friday.
“The bus driver was doing sharp turns and he made me fly over to the next seat,” one student wrote.
“It feels like the bus is going to flip over,” another complained. “When someone is in the aisle he stops the bus and he makes people hit their heads.”
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Walker, 24, is charged with vehicular homicide and reckless endangerment for the Monday wreck on a narrow Chattanooga road.
A school bus is carried away Tuesday in Chattanooga, Tenn, a day after it crashed.
(Mark Humphrey/AP)
Police said Walker was driving “well above” the 30-mph speed limit when the bus — packed with 37 stents on their way home from Woodmore Elementary School — flipped over and wrapped around a tree. Six students were killed in the crash, and dozens more were injured.
The students who complained about Walker’s speeding were not the only people to take notice of his behavior behind the wheel. Earlier this month, a school official rode the bus with students after Walker complained the kids weren’t listening to him — but the staffer’s report only noted the driver’s questionable conduct.
Carlis Shackelford, a behavioral specialist at the school, wrote that Walker became testy when the students complained about the heat on the bus.
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“The driver was now visibly upset and continued on by saying that he had another job and driving this bus was just a part-time job for him,” Shackelford wrote of his Nov. 2 ride-along. “He then stated, ‘Or I can just leave the student on the bus and I will get off the bus and leave the school.'”
Johnthony Walker was arrested after the Monday crash.
(HANDOUT/AFP/Getty Images)
“Driver stated that he did not care about the students and proceeded to tell the students he did not care about them,” Shackelford wrote.
The school district’s transportation supervisor, Benjamin Coulter, responded that “we are addressing the issue with the driver.”
National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher A. Hart said in a news conference earlier this week that Walker had taken on a second job at an Amazon fulfillment center, and part of the agency’s investigation will look at whether fatigue played a role in the wreck.
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Woodmore Principal Brenda Adamson-Cothran wrote to Coulter several times in the weeks leading up to the crash, noting that students were complaining about Walker’s speed. One student said the driver “was swerving and purposely trying to cause them to fall today,” she wrote in one letter.
Neighborhood resident Michelle Ingram places a teddy bear at a makeshift memorial, Wednesday at the site of the crash.
(Doug Strickland/AP)
Hamilton County schools spokeswoman Amy Katcher noted that Walker was employed by outside contractor Durham School Services, so the district may not have access to all the complaints about him.
The bus company has not responded to questions about its safety record or Walker’s employment history. Durham CEO David A. Duke released a video this week statement expressing condolences to the families and pledging to work with investigators.
With News Wire Services
