Deshon Johnson's friends and family gathered Wednesday morning at Bloomfield's Broad Street and Bay Avenue looking for answers where the 22-year-old Montclair man was killed by a bus on July 18.
Nia Bennett of Montclair carries a sign on Wednesday urging
safe intersections. Her friend Deshon Johnson, also of Montclair, was
killed on July 18 at Broad Street and Bay Avenue in Bloomfield.
Protestors said they were seeking eyewitnesses to the
accident as well as voicing displeasure in the handling of the
investigation.
The Essex County
Prosecutor's Office has been of little help, said Johnson's friend
James Little. A video from the Exxon gas station across the street shows
the bus did not stop to pick up Johnson, he said. As the bus passed
Johnson, the vehicle went upon the curb and killed him, Little said.
"They're not seeing what we're seeing," he said of the Prosecutor's Office. "We want answers."
"No one is trying to take fault for this," added friend Theo
Williams. The bus company "didn't reach out to [Johnson's] mother until
the day before the wake," he said.
Authorities have not released full details. Johnson was rushing to catch the bus to his job when he was hit, Acting Essex County
Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray said at the time. No charges have been
filed, but the case is still under investigation, said prosecutor
spokeswoman Kathy Carter.
"Representatives of this office have met with family and expect to be meeting with them again," said Carter.
NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder said Bus 709 is
contracted out to Coach USA. While the bus and its route are operated by
the state agency, the driver is not an NJ Transit employee. She
referred questions to Coach.
Coach President Tom Lewis did not return a call for comment.
Brad Schenerman, an attorney for the family, attended the protest. He represented a Paterson
woman who had her left leg and right foot amputated after being hit by
an NJ Transit bus in a crosswalk in 2008. She received $7.7 million in a
settlement with the agency, according to a June 2011 report in The
Record.
"We're not talking about lawsuits right now," Schenerman
told reporters Wednesday. "We're just trying to figure out who did
what." Montclair
resident Tracy King described Johnson as a straight A student and
artist. He went to Kean University to stay close to his mother Naomi,
who was in a car accident in 2007, she said. Later, he transferred to Essex County Community College.
"We have to be here for her," King said of Naomi. "He was her only son. It's not natural to have to bury your son."
After her son's death, Naomi Johnson was desperate for answers, and she wasn't about to wait for the police to provide them.
The Greenwood Avenue resident and two of her close friends have started investigating the death Deshon Johnson themselves.
Naomi, who moved to Montclair from East Orange 14 years ago, and her friends Cheryl Person-Williams, of Montclair, and Susan Little, of Clifton,
have been doing some of their own detective work near the crash site in
an attempt to determine why the bus struck and killed Deshon.
The three women, whose sons grew up together and were best
friends, have been canvassing businesses near the corner where the
accident occurred, talking to merchants to find out what they might have
seen that morning, and reviewing surveillance footage.
One of the businesses that the women have checked in with is Brookside Garden Center & Florist on Broad.
The business owner said in an interview with The Montclair
Times that on the morning of the accident he tried unsuccessfully to
stop passengers who had been riding on the bus from leaving the scene in
the immediate aftermath.
Martin O'Boyle said that on the day of the crash, one of his
employees heard someone standing across Bay Avenue screaming, "Call
9-1-1!" and the worker came inside the shop saying, "Something happened
over there,"
O'Boyle's sister called the police while he went outside,
where he found Deshon lying on his back, unconscious in the middle of
the eastbound lane, where the bus had been traveling.
"I wouldn't even want to say how he looked," O'Boyle
recalled during an interview Tuesday. "It was pretty bad. It was obvious
he was in bad shape." Johnson's body was on the bridge over the stream
flowing into Brookside Park. The bus had come to a halt about 50 to 100
feet down Bay Avenue, to the east, O'Boyle said.
Some passengers were getting off the bus and starting to leave before the police arrived.
"I was upset. I yelled at them, 'Where you going? Get back
on that bus because the police officers will want to talk to you,'"
O'Boyle said. "It just happened very, very quickly. Two or three people
stayed on the bus," but a couple of passengers sneaked away, he said.
The witness whose screams alerted O'Boyle's worker to the crash also
"didn't stick around," the merchant said.
O'Boyle said he and his staff did not witness the incident,
and his cameras were not oriented properly to capture the crash. Their
view likely would have been obscured by the side of the bus, anyway.
"Every angle seemed to be blocked," he said. "It was one of
those sad days. I felt bad for the kid. Life goes too quick when
something like that happens so fast."
Person-Williams, who said she, Johnson and Little have been
dedicating time every day for the past week to piecing together
information about Deshon's death, said she is hoping that some of the
witnesses who took off before the police responded will come forward and
shed some light on that morning's events.
On Tuesday afternoon, a heartbroken, sobbing Naomi Johnson
sat in the living room of her apartment with Little and Person-Williams,
looking at academic awards her only child had won.
"That's all I have to look at. This and pictures," Johnson
said. "He was just a talented, gifted young man, who I will never see
again."
Deshon, who Naomi referred to as "my prince," graduated from Montclair High School in 2008. He majored in business and finance at Essex County College's West Caldwell campus and was a few classes away from getting his associate's degree.
"My son was like my rock, my strength," after her crash,
which left her with permanent nerve damage on the right side of her
body.
"Now I'm reliving it again," she said. "This is going to be a
forever pain, a whole-life injury. 'I'm sorry' is not going to cut it."
"He ran over my baby. He killed my child," Naomi wept. "I get this vision of how it happened. It's horrible."
"That's all I have, and this is the end. I don't have a
grandchild to remind me of my son," nor does she have another child who
can support her, the victim's mother said. "That's all. That's my life,
my breath. And it's gone."
The family asks anyone with information about the accident to call 973-953-1144 or email naomjohnson@gmail.com.
Dan Prochilo is a staff writer at The Montclair Times. Email: frankel@northjersey.com.
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