Lawsuit: School Bus Driver in Fatal Wreck Was ‘Sadistic’
Johnthony Walker, the driver involved in the Nov.21, 2016 school bus crash that sent 31 of the 37 students on board to the hospital resulting in six fatalities, appears before Judge Lila Statom in Hamilton County General Sessions Court on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2016 for charges of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. Walker's case was bound over to the grand jury after an hour and a half of testimony from two Chattanooga Police Department officers. Dan Henry/The Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP
The driver in a Tennessee school bus wreck that killed six children had a “sadistic” habit of driving recklessly and slamming on the brakes to discipline the children, a federal lawsuit said.
A lawsuit filed Wednesday in Chattanooga federal court accuses Hamilton County Schools, district Transportation Supervisor Ben Coulter and Durham School Services of failing to take reasonable precautions to prevent the Nov. 21 crash and being “deliberately indifferent” to the students’ constitutional rights, news outlets reported.
“This horror was foreseeable, predictable and preventable,” the lawsuit said, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
The defendants had received complaints about the bus driver, Johnthony Walker, but did nothing to fix the problem, the lawsuit said.
In this photo provided by the Chattanooga Fire Department via Chattanooga Times Free Press, Chattanooga Fire Department members work the scene of a fatal elementary school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tenn., Monday, Nov. 21, 2016. Bruce Garner/Chattanooga Fire Department via Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP
