logo
Family of Hyde Park boy killed by BPS bus says company, driver were negligent, according to new lawsuit

Family of Hyde Park boy killed by BPS bus says company, driver were negligent, according to new lawsuit

Boston Globe4 days ago
Advertisement
No one has been criminally charged in the crash, which remains under investigation by the Suffolk District Attorney's office and Boston police.
Charles resigned in May, shortly before a scheduled termination hearing, city and district leaders have said. The Globe has been unable to reach him, and city and state officials have declined to release any identifying information about the driver except for his name.
About a month after the crash, Mayor Michelle Wu and Superintendent Mary Skipper announced an independent probe into the company's
safety policies and performance.
Related
:
Transdev, an $11 billion French company with US headquarters in Illinois, has served as BPS's bus contractor since 2013. BPS contracts with the company to maintain the district's bus fleet, its three bus yards, and hire and manage school bus drivers, the district has said.
Advertisement
Transdev didn't immediately respond to a request for comment in response to the lawsuit.
'We are committed to ensuring that Lens Joseph's life will not be defined by his death. We are steadfast in seeking justice for Lens and his family members, and we will not waver in that pursuit,' said the family's attorneys, Matthew Fogelman and Alan Klevan, in a statement.
The Joseph family
The Joseph family lawsuit seeks a jury trial, and asks for 'damages in an amount sufficient to compensate them' for their injuries, pain and suffering, and expenses, the complaint said.
The Josephs' complaint includes details that have been previously released by city and school officials regarding Lens's death.
Charles, who had been driving for about two years as a BPS bus
driver for Transdev, had been in a series of crashes prior to Lens's death. Charles had been removed from the road by Transdev for training less than two weeks before the fatal Hyde Park crash, according to details previously released by
Advertisement
On the day of the crash, Charles was serving as a substitute school bus driver, and had never taken the route that included Lens and his cousin, the city and school leaders have said. A few minutes before the crash in Hyde Park, Charles struck a vehicle in Mattapan before leaving the scene, the Globe has reported.
Charles did not follow protocol and report to a school bus yard safety office
the collision, which happened while Lens, his cousin, and other children were aboard the bus, officials have said.
Related
:
The Joseph family's complaint alleges Transdev was negligent in the hiring, training, and supervision of its drivers. It was also 'negligently implementing' policies and procedures for the safe transportation of children on buses, the complaint said.
Transdev also failed to use safety equipment on the buses, which are owned by BPS, according to the complaint. That includes stop-arm cameras, extended stop arms, crossing arms, surround cameras, pedestrian detection sensors, and automatic braking systems, the complaint said.
Charles, the bus driver, acted 'negligently and/or recklessly' within the scope of his employment, according to the complaint.
Neither the city of Boston or Boston Public Schools are named as defendants in the complaint.
Lens's cousin also has been deeply impacted by the crash. She feared for her own safety while watching the bus run over Lens, and she has suffered severe emotional distress as a result, including anxiety, depression, sadness, fear, and sleep disturbances, the complaint said.
Lens's aunt and grandmother witnessed the moments immediately after the collision and also were traumatized by it, the lawsuit said.
Since the crash, Transdev audited its drivers to ensure they had appropriate and valid credentials, Wu and Skipper have said.
Advertisement
BPS has also strengthened its safety protocols since the Hyde Park crash, including regular meetings with Transdev safety leadership to review all crashes and safety incidents, and the company's responses.
There are about 400 'incidents' per year involving a BPS school bus, the city and school officials have said, generally one or two crashes per day across the fleet. Most involve minimal damage, they have said.
They also said Transdev was accelerating regular refresher training of all drivers on pickup, drop-off, and crash protocols.
Concerns about Boston Public Schools bus safety remain. The City Council's Education Committee,
John Hilliard can be reached at
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

French court to decide if Assad can be stripped of immunity and tried for Syrian chemical attacks

time6 hours ago

French court to decide if Assad can be stripped of immunity and tried for Syrian chemical attacks

BRUSSELS -- France's highest court is ruling Friday on whether it can strip the head of state immunity of Bashar Assad, the former leader of Syria now in exile in Russia, because of the brutality of the evidence in accusations against him collected by Syrian activists and European prosecutors. If the judges at the Cour de Cassation lift Assad's immunity, it could pave the way for his trial in absentia over the use of chemical weapons in Ghouta in 2013 and Douma in 2018, and set a precedent to allow the prosecution of other government leaders linked to atrocities, human rights activists and lawyers say. Assad has retained no lawyers for these charges and has denied he was behind the chemical attacks. A ruling against Assad would be 'a huge victory for the victims,' said Mazen Darwish, president of the Syrian Center for Media which collected evidence of war crimes. 'It's not only about Syrians, this will open the door for the victims from any country and this will be the first time that a domestic investigative judge has the right to issue an arrest warrant for a president during his rule.' He said the ruling could enable his group to legally go after regime members, like launching a money laundering case against former Syrian Central Bank governor and Minister of Economy Adib Mayaleh, whose lawyers have argued he had immunity under international law. For over 50 years, Syria was ruled by Hafez Assad and then his son Bashar. During the Arab Spring, rebellion broke out against their tyrannical rule in 2011 across the country of 23 million, igniting a brutal 13-year civil war that killed more than half a million people, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. Millions more fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Europe. The Assad dynasty manipulated sectarian tensions to stay in power, a legacy driving renewed violence in Syria against minority groups despite promises that the country's new leaders will carve out a political future for Syria that includes and represents all its communities. The ruling stripping Assad's immunity could set a 'significant precedent' that 'could really set the stage for potentially for other cases in national jurisdictions that strike down immunities," said Mariana Pena, a human rights lawyer at the Open Society Justice Initiative, which helped bring the case to court. As the International Criminal Court has issued arrests warrants for leaders accused of atrocities — like Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza, and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines — the French judges' ruling could empower the legal framework to prosecute not just deposed and exiled leaders but those currently in power. The Syrian government denied in 2013 that it was behind the Ghouta attack, an accusation the opposition rejected as Assad's forces were the only side in the brutal civil war to possess sarin. The United States subsequently threatened military retaliation, but Washington settled for a deal with Moscow for Assad to give up his chemical weapons' stockpile. Assad survived more than a decade longer, aided militarily by Russia and Iranian-backed proxies. Activists and human rights group accuse him of using barrel bombs, torture, and massacres to crush opponents. But then in late 2024, a surprise assault by rebels swept into Aleppo and then Damascus, driving the dictator to flee for his ally Russia on Dec. 8, 2024. While Darwish and others plan to press Interpol and Russia to extradite him, they know it is unlikely. But an arrest warrant issued by France could lay the groundwork for the former dictator's trial in absentia or potential arrest if he travels outside Russia. Any trial of Assad, whether in absentia or if he leaves Russia, would mean this evidence could then 'be brought to light,' Pena said, including an enormous trove of classified and secret evidence amassed by the judges during their investigations. Syrians often took great personal risk to gather evidence of war crimes. Darwish said that in the aftermath of a chlorine gas attack in Douma, for example, teams collected eyewitness testimonies, images of devastation, and soil samples. Others then tracked down and interviewed defectors to build a 'chain of command' for the regime's chemical weapons production and use. 'We link it directly to the president himself, Bashar al-Assad,' he said. Assad was relatively safe under international law. Heads of state could not be prosecuted for actions taken during their rule, a rule designed long ago to ease dialogue when leaders needed to travel the world to meet, said Jeanne Sulzer, a French lawyer who co-led the case against Assad for the 2013 chemical attack. She said that kind of immunity is "almost a taboo" regardless of the weight of the charges. "You have to wait until the person is not a sitting in office to be able to prosecute,' she said. But that protection has been whittled away over the years by courts ruling that the brutality of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Charles Taylor in Liberia, and Slobodan Milošević in Yugoslavia, to name just a few, merited a restructuring of the world's legal foundations, said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative. Syria today remains beholden to many awful legacies of the Assad dynasty. Poverty, sectarianism, destruction, and violence still haunt the Syrian Arab Republic. Damascus' new rulers are investigating nearly 300 people for crimes during several days of fighting on Syria's coast earlier this year. The interim authorities in Damascus have pledged to work with the United Nations on investigating further war crimes of the Assad regime and the civil war. The global chemical weapons watchdog has called on the new government of interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa to protect and dismantle Assad's stockpiles. Darwish is working on 29 cases against Assad and other regime figures who have fled to Russia, the Gulf, Lebanon and Europe. He said many Syrians hope Assad sits for a fair trial in Syria. 'It should be done in Damascus, but we need also a lot of guarantees that we will have a fair trial even for this suspect," he said. His organization has already received requests to bring to court war crimes accusations against those involved in recent bloodshed in southern Syria. 'So anyone, whatever his name, or the regime, or their authority, we will keep fighting this type of crime,' Darwish said.

3-Year-Old Boy Dies After Being Left in Hot Car By the Department of Human Resources, Which Took Him Away from His Father
3-Year-Old Boy Dies After Being Left in Hot Car By the Department of Human Resources, Which Took Him Away from His Father

Yahoo

time7 hours ago

  • Yahoo

3-Year-Old Boy Dies After Being Left in Hot Car By the Department of Human Resources, Which Took Him Away from His Father

The boy was left in the car for five hours while the DHR worker went shopping and stopped at home A 3-year-old boy died in a hot car in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday, July 22, while in the care of a Department of Human Resources worker. Ke'Torrius Starks Jr. was identified by his father at the coroner's office. Starkes, who was from Bessemer, Ala., was found in a hot car outside a home on Pine Tree Drive. The child had been left alone in the car between 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. local time, and was pronounced dead at 6:03 p.m. local time, local NBC affiliate WVTM13 reported. Tuesday was considered a First Warning Impact Day, with the heat index in the triple digits, per the outlet. "A child in DHR custody was being transported by a contract provider when the incident occurred," a spokesperson for Alabama DHR told WVTM13 and "The provider has terminated their employee. Due to confidentiality, DHR cannot comment further regarding the identity of the child or the exact circumstances." PEOPLE contacted Alabama DHR for comment. The family's attorney, Courtney French, told ABC 3340 the child was in temporary foster care and had been picked up from daycare at 9:00 a.m. for a supervised visit with his biological father, which ended around 11:30 a.m. French alleged that instead of returning Starks to daycare, the worker, employed through The Covenant Services, Inc., stopped to pick up food for her family and shopped at a tobacco store. The employee then allegedly returned to her home and left the child in the parked car for more than five hours. "A heartbreaking and preventable tragedy. Based upon a preliminary investigation, with the current extreme outside temperatures and the heat index of 108 degrees, the interior temperature of the car where KJ was trapped likely exceeded 150 degrees," French told ABC 3340. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. French's office said Starks' parents are grieving this loss. In a statement issued via French, the family said, "This is a parent's worst nightmare. Our baby should be alive." PEOPLE has reached out to the Jefferson County Coroner's Office and French's firm, Petway French Ford, for comment. Read the original article on People

French court to decide if Assad can be stripped of immunity and tried for Syrian chemical attacks
French court to decide if Assad can be stripped of immunity and tried for Syrian chemical attacks

Boston Globe

time7 hours ago

  • Boston Globe

French court to decide if Assad can be stripped of immunity and tried for Syrian chemical attacks

Ruling could open door for prosecutions in other countries A ruling against Assad would be 'a huge victory for the victims,' said Mazen Darwish, president of the Syrian Center for Media which collected evidence of war crimes. 'It's not only about Syrians, this will open the door for the victims from any country and this will be the first time that a domestic investigative judge has the right to issue an arrest warrant for a president during his rule.' He said the ruling could enable his group to legally go after regime members, like launching a money laundering case against former Syrian Central Bank governor and Minister of Economy Adib Mayaleh, whose lawyers have argued he had immunity under international law. Advertisement For over 50 years, Syria was ruled by Hafez Assad and then his son Bashar. During the Arab Spring, rebellion broke out against their tyrannical rule in 2011 across the country of 23 million, igniting a brutal 13-year civil war that killed more than half a million people, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. Millions more fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Europe. The Assad dynasty manipulated sectarian tensions to stay in power, a legacy driving renewed violence in Syria against minority groups despite promises that the country's new leaders will carve out a political future for Syria that includes and represents all its communities. Advertisement The ruling stripping Assad's immunity could set a 'significant precedent' that 'could really set the stage for potentially for other cases in national jurisdictions that strike down immunities,' said Mariana Pena, a human rights lawyer at the Open Society Justice Initiative, which helped bring the case to court. As the International Criminal Court has issued arrests warrants for leaders accused of atrocities — like Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza, and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines — the French judges' ruling could empower the legal framework to prosecute not just deposed and exiled leaders but those currently in power. Assad allegedly bombed, tortured and gassed civilians The Syrian government denied in 2013 that it was behind the Ghouta attack, an accusation the opposition rejected as Assad's forces were the only side in the brutal civil war to possess sarin. The United States subsequently threatened military retaliation, but Washington settled for a deal with Moscow for Assad to give up his chemical weapons' stockpile. Assad survived more than a decade longer, aided militarily by Russia and Iranian-backed proxies. Activists and human rights group accuse him of using barrel bombs, torture, and massacres to crush opponents. But then in late 2024, a surprise assault by rebels swept into Aleppo and then Damascus, driving the dictator to flee for his ally Russia on Dec. 8, 2024. While Darwish and others plan to press Interpol and Russia to extradite him, they know it is unlikely. But an arrest warrant issued by France could lay the groundwork for the former dictator's trial in absentia or potential arrest if he travels outside Russia. Advertisement Any trial of Assad, whether in absentia or if he leaves Russia, would mean this evidence could then 'be brought to light,' Pena said, including an enormous trove of classified and secret evidence amassed by the judges during their investigations. Syrians often took great personal risk to gather evidence of war crimes. Darwish said that in the aftermath of a chlorine gas attack in Douma, for example, teams collected eyewitness testimonies, images of devastation, and soil samples. Others then tracked down and interviewed defectors to build a 'chain of command' for the regime's chemical weapons production and use. 'We link it directly to the president himself, Bashar al-Assad,' he said. Head of state immunity is 'almost taboo' Assad was relatively safe under international law. Heads of state could not be prosecuted for actions taken during their rule, a rule designed long ago to ease dialogue when leaders needed to travel the world to meet, said Jeanne Sulzer, a French lawyer who co-led the case against Assad for the 2013 chemical attack. She said that kind of immunity is 'almost a taboo' regardless of the weight of the charges. 'You have to wait until the person is not a sitting in office to be able to prosecute,' she said. But that protection has been whittled away over the years by courts ruling that the brutality of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Charles Taylor in Liberia, and Slobodan Milošević in Yugoslavia, to name just a few, merited a restructuring of the world's legal foundations, said James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative. Advertisement Ending impunity in Syria Syria today remains beholden to many awful legacies of the Assad dynasty. Poverty, sectarianism, destruction, and violence still haunt the Syrian Arab Republic. Damascus' new rulers are investigating nearly 300 people for crimes during several days of fighting on Syria's coast earlier this year. The interim authorities in Damascus have pledged to work with the United Nations on investigating further war crimes of the Assad regime and the civil war. The global chemical weapons watchdog has called on the new government of interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa to protect and dismantle Assad's stockpiles. Darwish is working on 29 cases against Assad and other regime figures who have fled to Russia, the Gulf, Lebanon and Europe. He said many Syrians hope Assad sits for a fair trial in Syria. 'It should be done in Damascus, but we need also a lot of guarantees that we will have a fair trial even for this suspect,' he said. His organization has already received requests to bring to court war crimes accusations against those involved in recent bloodshed in southern Syria. 'So anyone, whatever his name, or the regime, or their authority, we will keep fighting this type of crime,' Darwish said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store