A Tennessee school bus driver was on his cellphone and driving 20mph over the speed limit when he caused the wreck that killed six elementary school students, a prosecutor said in court on Tuesday.
Prosecutor Crystle Carrion said Johnthony Walker, 25, was doing 50mph on a narrow, winding Chattanooga road when the bus ran off the pavement, hit a pole, and then flipped the bus into a walnut tree on November 21, 2016.
‘It all could have been avoided if Johnthony Walker would have just slowed down and gone the speed limit and stayed off his phone,’ Carrion said in opening statements.
Johnthony Walker, the driver involved in a school bus crash resulting in six fatalities (pictured in court last fall) is now on trial in Tennessee
The prosecution argued that Walker was on his cellphone and driving 20mph over the speed limit when he crashed this school bus carrying 37 elementary school students
The bus ran off the pavement, hit a pole, and then flipped into a walnut tree, causing the roof of the vehicle to cave in
She argued that Walker was driving too fast to navigate a tight curve safely and drifted into the oncoming lane, then over-corrected, leading to the deadly crash shortly after 3.20pm.
Walker is being tried on 34 charges, including six counts of vehicular homicide, 18 counts of reckless aggravated assault, and one count of use of a portable electronic device by a school bus driver.
Defense attorney Amanda Dunn said in opening statements that police made assumptions and came to their conclusions before getting all the facts in the case, reported the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
‘There is also no justice in convicting a man based on conjecture, and that is exactly what the state seeks to do,’ she said. ‘One of the most important facts in this case that the state still refuses to acknowledge is that there were eyewitnesses to this accident.’
D’Myunn Brown, six (left) and Cor’Dayja Jones, nine (right) were among the deceased kids
Also among the dead were Keonte Wilson, eight (left) and Zyanna Harris, ten (right)
Zoie Nash, nine (left) and Zyaira Mateen, six (right) lost their lives in the wreck
Dunn said Chattanooga police never investigated a witness who said her client swerved to avoid another vehicle while driving 37 students home in 2016.
The wreck claimed the lives of D’Myunn Brown, six; Zyaira Mateen, six; Zyanna Harris, ten; Keonte Wilson, eight; Cor’Dayja Jones, nine, and Zoie Nash, nine.
In the run-up to the trial, Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Don Pool ruled that jurors will not hear testimony that Walker hurled expletives at students and had prior issues.
In late December, Durham School Services settled a lawsuit for $323,000 on behalf of a 9-year-old crash survivor who suffered a concussion, a broken arm, cuts to his liver and permanent scarring on his arms.
Prosecutors said during a pre-trial hearing last year that Walker received a call at 3.17pm that lasted almost four minutes. The first 911 call about the crash came in at 3.20pm.
Prosecutors said during a pre-trial hearing that Walker (left and right) received a call at 3.17pm that lasted almost four minutes. A witness on Tuesday insisted the call was much shorter
But witness Takeisha Nixon said from the stand on Tuesday that she was not on the phone with the driver when the crash happened, arguing that their conversation was much shorter than 4 minutes, contrary to the prosecution’s version of events.
Nixon, who worked with Walker at his second job, told the court she called Walker on November 21 and asked if he was driving. He said, ‘Yes.’ She told him, ‘Drive carefully,’ and hung up.
Nixon testified that as a rule, she does not use the phone while driving and does not like to talk to other people while they are behind the wheel, reported The Chattanoogan.
Addressing the duration of the phone call presented by the opposing side, Nixon floated the possibility that Walker had failed to hang up the phone on his end.