Bus rolls over girl, in New York

THE eight-year-old grandson of a Trinidadian has not been charged with any criminal offence after he sneaked into a school bus in Brooklyn, New York, released the brakes, causing the vehicle to crush an eight-year-old girl, who was crossing the street at the time.

The incident took place on May 22 after the boy had been suspended from school for the day. The boy was at home with his ailing great-grandmother when she fell asleep. He sneaked out of the house, climbed through the back door of the bus and released the brakes shortly after 3 pm. The bus rolled down a hill on Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights, crushing Amber Sadiq who was holding the hand of her ten-year-old brother Omar. The boy escaped injury.

Last Friday, a decision was taken not to charge the boy, the son of Albert James. But the authorities have accused the parents of neglect.

In a tense Brooklyn Family Court hearing last Friday, the boy’s father, Albert James, and mother, Sophia Morales, agreed to allow the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) to place the child — who has a history of behavioural problems — in a therapeutic foster care home.

“I’d like to see him get help,” said the emotional 25-year-old single father, a full-time office manager who says he had been seeking city services for his son for more than a year. “Whatever is best for him, I’m for it.”

James said his son had been suspended from school for trying to climb aboard another school bus three days before Sadiq’s death. He said just hours before the tragedy, he had gone to the school to meet with school officials.

The boy had been absent 40 times this year, including three long suspensions.

James has had custody of his three sons, including a five-year-old now with his grandfather in Trinidad, since Morales went to Florida last year, his lawyer said. The mother told Family Court Justice Jane Pearl she now wanted custody, but could not afford a lawyer. She works two jobs at resorts, one for US$7 an hour and the other for US$8 an hour, she said.

Pearl ordered the third son, a seven-year-old, returned to James as long as ACS monitored the home weekly and provided home care. Cops had initially charged the eight-year-old with criminally negligent homicide, but city lawyers told Family Court Judge Maureen McLeod in a separate proceeding on Friday that they were not filing charges.

City lawyers used the neglect accusation against the parents to remove the child from the home. The hearing capped an emotional week that began on May 22 when Sadiq was killed. Amber’s aunt, Lucy Caca, said the child’s grieving mother did not want to talk. She had no comment on the decision not to charge the boy, who lives in the building next door and attended Public School 161 with Amber.

“There is nothing I can say. It still doesn’t bring my niece back,” she told the New York Daily News. Caca described the family as trying to cope with the loss of the happy, lovable child. At the entrance to their Crown Street building, children and neighbours had erected a makeshift memorial, with candles and hand-drawn cards saying, “We love you, Amber. We miss you!” “She is an angel now. She was an angel then,” said Caca, as Amber’s brother, Omar, came into the kitchen. “To hear him crying at night for his sister is the worst part.”