A school-bus driver who ran over a woman in Tacoma won’t be charged, prosecutors say
No charges will be filed against the driver of a school bus that struck and mortally injured Tacoma resident Brittanee Parker during a morning walk with her dog.
“There is no evidence that (the bus driver) knew that she had been involved in a collision resulting in the death of any person,” Pierce County deputy prosecutor Miriam Norman wrote in a memo explaining the decision.
The News Tribune reported that 32-year-old Parker died the morning of Oct. 4 when a bus full of elementary school children made a right turn onto South 11th Street as Parker and her black Labrador mix were crossing the street. Passersby found her body and called for help, but she was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Parker was identified Oct. 10 after investigators matched her description to an apartment resident that building staff said they hadn’t seen for a few days.
The bus that hit Parker was part of Harlow’s School Bus Service and transported children to Impact | Commencement Bay Elementary, a charter school, police reports obtained by The News Tribune several weeks later revealed.
Charges will not be filed against the driver because there is insufficient evidence to prove either vehicular homicide or a hit-and-run death, according to the deputy prosecuting attorney’s memo.
The News Tribune reached out to Parker’s family members and the bus driver Tuesday evening but did not immediately hear back.
On Wednesday, Parker’s mother and stepfather requested that The News Tribune reach out to their attorney for comment. Annie Alley, a spokesperson for the attorney, wrote that they won’t be sharing a statement at this time.
To prove vehicular homicide, prosecutors must show that the bus driver was “driving with disregard for the safety of others” and “the proximate cause of Parker’s death,” according to the memo.
“Disregard for the safety of others” refers to “an aggravated kind of negligence or carelessness, falling short of recklessness but constituting a more serious dereliction than ordinary negligence,” the memo states.
Ordinary negligence means “the failure to exercise ordinary care,” the memo continues. It can describe someone doing something that a “reasonably careful person” wouldn’t do, or not doing something that such a person would, under the same or similar circumstances.
The driver’s behavior didn’t rise to the level of disregard for others’ safety based on video footage collected in the police investigation, Norman wrote.
“Her speeds and her driving visible on the footage show normal operation of the bus,” the memo said. “Although (the driver) seemed to check to the left more than the right before making a turn onto S 11th Street, there were no driving behaviors that rose to the level of negligence.”
The driver also won’t be charged for a hit-and-run death because there isn’t evidence that she knew she was involved in a fatal collision, according to the memo.
Her behavior in video footage and in the aftermath of the collision suggested that she wasn’t aware she hit a pedestrian, only a dog that ran away. The conditions that morning also made room for error, according to the memo.
“(The driver), upon learning of the death of Ms. Parker, became despondent,” Norman wrote. “. . . Given the low visibility of Ms. Parker’s dark clothing, dark rainy weather, (the driver’s) inexperience of being a bus driver, that the dog then ran away, and that the children also exclaimed about the dog, the evidence does not show that (the driver) knew that she had struck Ms. Parker.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a response from the law firm representing Parker’s mother and stepfather.
This story was originally published December 18, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
