Multiple Children Killed In School Bus Crash In Tennessee

A Tennessee school bus driver was arrested and faces charges including vehicular homicide in a deadly crash that killed at least six people, including five children, police said in a news conference late Monday.

Chattanooga police Chief Fred Fletcher said that 24-year-old Johnthony Walker was charged with five counts of vehicular homicide. Walker was also charged with reckless driving and reckless endangerment.

Fletcher called the afternoon crash “every public safety professional’s worst nightmare.” He said earlier that investigators were looking at speed “very, very strongly” as a factor in the accident.



In addition to the five deaths, six were admitted to area hospitals but weren’t critically injured and 20 others were treated and released from hospitals.

Thirty-five students from kindergarten through fifth grade were on board when the bus flipped on its side and wrapped around a tree. The bus was the only vehicle involved in the crash, but Fletcher said the scene was complicated and covered a significant area.


Bloodied students lay on stretchers, while others walked away dazed with their parents after the crash, local news outlets reported. Emergency personnel needed almost two hours to get all the children off the bus.

Television cameras showed emergency vehicles still there late into the night, and the National Transportation Safety Board tweeted that a team would be heading to Chattanooga on Tuesday morning to investigate.

Television stations reported that people lined up to donate blood and some donors were asked to make appointments for Tuesday.