Jasmine Mateen, a mother of three of the victims of the tragic school bus crash in Chattanooga has her complaints since school started from her children that driver Johnthony Walker, 24, was reckless.
“I have been calling complaining about this bus driver since August,” she tells media.
Mateen said she called the Board of Education and Woodmore Elementary School and even wrote letters to the school and to the Walker himself. She said that her letter was about Walker “slamming on breaks on purpose” and making the kids hit their head. Walker would drink “every day on the bus”, “always cuss at them’ and ‘was always speeding.”
Mateen’s six-year-old daughter, Zyaira, didn’t survive the Tennessee bus crash.
According to Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher, 35 students in kindergarten through fifth-grade from Woodmore Elementary School, turned over on its side and struck the tree.
Authorities received a call about the crash just before 3:30 p.m., and emergency officials worked for “many hours” to remove all the children from the bus, he said.
Fletcher said 23 victims were transported to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga.
This is second time in two months Walker crashed a school bus.
In September, he was driving around a blind curve in a residential area when he failed to yield the right of way and sideswiped another car, according to an accident report obtained by CNN.
Walker “crossed over into the oncoming traffic lane to maneuver the bus through the curve and struck vehicle #2 in doing so,” the report states. “There were no children in the front rows, and no reports of any injuries. The damage (was) minor to both vehicles.”
Walker received his commercial driver’s license in April, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
His school bus left Woodmore Elementary School on Monday afternoon with 37 students. It did not make any stops before the crash, NTSB Chairman Christopher A. Hart said on Tuesday.
There are reportedly 12 children who spend Thanksgiving trying to recover in a hospital, some with severe head or spinal injuries. Five families will cherish the memories of D’Myunn Brown, Zyaira Mateen, Cordayja Jones, Zoie Nash, and Zyanna Harris.
