Clay County Grand Jury Declines to Indict Former Bus Driver
By Glenn E. Rice, The Kansas City Star, Mo.
Feb. 19–A Clay County grand jury today declined to hand down indictments involving a May 2005 school bus crash that killed two motorists and injured numerous children in Liberty.
Prosecutor Daniel White said the grand jury proceedings — which are secret under state law — closes the criminal case involving driver Irma Denise Thomas.
Thomas was driving Liberty school bus No. 80 on the morning of May 9, 2005, carrying 53 children to Ridgeview Elementary School, when the bus careened out of control. It slammed into two vehicles at the intersection of Missouri 291 and Missouri 152, killing two motorists and injuring 23 children on the bus.
The crash killed David Gleason, 53, and David Sandweiss, 49, and critically injured two children.
“The National Transportation Safety Board expects to issue a final report in July. The grand jury, though, only had until May 9 of this year to determine if there was criminal liability,” White said in a press release issued today. “The calendar was running and that’s what triggered this inquiry.”
The statute of limitations on almost all felony cases is three years, White said, which is why the grand jury proceeding moved forward without the final report from the NTSB.
Federal officials have said they are investigating whether the school bus driver erred before the crash, focusing on what is termed “pedal misapplication” — mistaking the accelerator for the brake pedal — a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board told The Kansas City Star last year.
Thomas could not be reached today for comment, and her attorney has said she would not talk about the crash.
White said several witnesses were called but that he could neither identify them nor summarize their testimony.
He said grand juries are charged with determining whether enough evidence exists for a criminal trial.
Keith Holloway, spokesman for the NTSB, said no conclusion had been reached in the Liberty crash and a final report was not expected for months.
Holloway has said NTSB officials were comparing the Liberty crash to another school bus accident on Jan. 12, 2007, in Bucks County, Pa. It raised a similar issue of pedal misapplication, he said.
“Because they are similar accidents, we will look at pedal misapplication,” Holloway told The Star last year. “We are not saying that was the cause, but there are some similar characteristics in both accidents that we are examining.”
He said both crashes involved school buses veering off the road. Both buses were built by Thomas Built Buses and the models were similar, too. The Liberty bus, a 2000 model, had been repaired about five years before the accident after a massive recall for serious brake malfunctions. The Pennsylvania bus, which was a few years older, also had brake work done.
The Pennsylvania crash occurred at Pennsbury High School, where a school bus veered into a group of students who were leaving school. The bus jumped a curb, drove over a sidewalk, plowed down a fence and crashed head-on into a retaining wall. No one died, but 17 students were injured.
To reach Glenn E. Rice, call 816-234-5908 or send an email to grice@kcstar.com.
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