A witness` account of a Chicago Transit Authority bus striking and killing a 7-year-old boy last week has prompted the Cook County state`s attorney office to try to interview her to see if stiffer charges should be brought against the bus driver.
On Tuesday morning, an attorney for the family of the dead boy said at a news conference that CTA bus driver Stephen Grandberry, 25, should be charged with a felony in the hit-and-run death of Kyle Wilder because, according to witnesses, he knew he hit Kyle but continued forward and ran over him.
”There have been far too lenient charges placed against the driver,”
said the lawyer, Edmund J. Scanlan. ”What is shocking to us, despite the obvious inhumanity of leaving the incident, is that they told police they observed what happened, but it`s not in the police reports.”
Grandberry was charged with two misdemeanors and suspended without pay pending a disciplinary hearing.
Later Tuesday, Jack O`Malley, Cook County state`s attorney, said that investigators were planning to try to interview the woman.
”No question about it, the police need to talk to this woman again,”
O`Malley said. ”This information that was given out this morning is obviously very important and the Police Department along with our office advising them has to evaluate that to determine whether any additional charges are appropriate.”
O`Malley however, declined to criticize the Police Department`s handling of the case, saying he didn`t want to make any conclusions until the woman was interviewed.
Ethel Flora, 31, who was at the news conference with Scanlan, said she, her mother, father and brother saw the incident from their car, which was at the rear left of the bus in the 5200 block of South Ashland Ashland. She said she heard the impact when Grandberry hit Kyle.
”He then stopped and backed up where he could see him,” Flora said.
Then, she said, the bus moved forward and ”his front left wheels and back left wheels went over the boy.” She said her brother, Johnny, 34, got out of the car to tell the bus driver that he hit someone.
”But he kept driving,” Flora said.
She said they followed Grandberry to the CTA garage at 69th Street and Ashland Avenue. She said that she and her relatives gave their reports to Chicago police officers in the garage.
Police reports only show that Flora`s family tried to stop Grandberry, then followed him to the CTA garage, according to copies of the reports distributed by Scanlan.
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A spokeswoman for the police`s major traffic investigations office would not comment about the police reports but said the investigation is continuing. The family of the boy filed suit Wednesday against the CTA and Grandberry for negligence in the boy`s death. The suit seeks more than $30,000 in damages.