No evidence that drugs or alcohol influenced deadly Chattanooga bus crash

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A school bus driver had no drugs or alcohol in his system when he careened off a road and smashed into a tree, killing six elementary schoolchildren, police said Wednesday.

Chattanooga Police Sgt. Austin Garrett said a toxicology test was performed on Johnthony Walker, 24, the bus driver now in jail on five vehicular homicide charges.

Police said Walker was driving well over the posted 30 mph limit when he lost control of the bus carrying 37 children on their way home from Woodmore Elementary School. Five children remain in the hospital.

Police disputed one woman’s claim that the driver asked the children if they were “prepared to die” just before the wreck.

Jasmine Mateen, whose 6year-old daughter was among the dead, said one of her two surviving children who were on the bus told her about the driver’s remarks.

Garrett, however, said at a Wednesday press conference: “I want to be very clear on this. No witness we have spoken with has that information or provided it directly to our investigators.”

He asked anyone with additional information to bring it to police, who are still interviewing witnesses and reviewing surveillance footage from the bus.

Three of the children killed were in fourth grade, one in first grade and another in kindergarten, said Kirk Kelly, interim superintendent of Hamilton County schools. The sixth child has not been identified.

Their families remembered them as fun, happy children.

D’Myunn Brown liked to play little tricks on grown-ups. The 6-year-old would snatch a cellphone, hide it, then giggle and bat his big brown eyes.

“That’s what made him so pretty, and he was as sweet as he could be,” said his greatgrandmother, Winifred Bray. “I’m still numb. I still can’t believe he’s gone.”

LaFrederick Thirkill remembered his 9-year-old cousin, Cordayja Jones, as a girly-girl who liked dressing up and giving hugs.

Thirkill is the principal at Orchard Knob Elementary, where Cordayja attended before changing schools to Woodmore Elementary.

She was a polite little girl, he said. Even though he was her cousin, she called him “Mr. Thirkill” when she saw him in the hallways.

“I remember her as just a kid who always smiles,” he said.

Mateen said her 6-year-old daughter Zyaira was a happy, silly girl who loved to dance and dreamed of growing up to be a doctor like her favorite Disney character, Doc McStuffins.

She said she had complained several times about the bus driver speeding through the neighborhood.