Mother of bus-crash victim from Montclair seeks law to
reduce fatal collisions
OCTOBER
11, 2012
BY DAN PROCHILO
STAFF WRITER
THE
MONTCLAIR TIMES
PHOTO COURTESY OF NAOMI JOHNSON
Naomi Johnson, of
Greenwood Avenue, with her 22-year-old son Deshon, who was killed while trying
to catch a bus in July.
The mother of Deshon
Johnson, the 22-year-old Montclair man who died after being run over by a bus
in Bloomfield during the summer, is gathering names on a petition seeking a
memorial to her son and the passage of a state law that would toughen the
penalties for bus drivers who injure or kill pedestrians.
As of early afternoon on
Tuesday, 172 people had signed the online petition, which calls upon NJ Transit
and Coach USA to "stop reckless, aggressive, and rude bus drivers from
taking innocent lives" and advocates for a law that would "implement
safety awareness and jail time" for bus drivers who hurt pedestrians. The
website includes a series of links to news stories about fatal bus accidents,
including an Oct. 4 article published by The Record about a 65-year-old bus
driver who was charged with vehicular homicide after she allegedly ran a red
light in Passaic and killed a passenger who had just stepped off her bus.
The petition presses for
either a memorial to be put up on the Bay Avenue bridge, just off Broad Street
in Bloomfield, where Deshon Johnson was killed, or for a street to be named in
his honor.
The victim was trying to
catch the 709 NJ Transit bus, which is contracted out to Coach USA, on the
morning of July 18 when the bus struck and killed him, according to police. An
eyewitness told The Times that the victim was found lying on his back in the
eastbound lane of Bay Avenue near Brookside Park, and the bus had stopped 50 to
100 feet away.
In the petition, Naomi
Johnson, Deshon's mother, states that the bus "came speeding around the
corner, never stopping, and jumped the curb," while her son was knocking
on the door to be allowed in. The grieving Greenwood Avenue resident began
investigating the accident along with two close friends after getting few
answers from authorities. They have pieced together their own account of what
occurred that morning based on discussions with merchants in the area and
surveillance footage captured by those retailers' cameras.
Based on their findings,
Naomi Johnson stated that her son fell when the bus rode up on the curb, and he
was dragged to death.
No charges have been
filed in connection with the incident, and the investigation is ongoing.
"These cases are
dismissed and labeled as an accident and this needs to stop," the petition
states.
Brad Schenerman,
Johnson's attorney, described his client as "a very nice woman under the
most difficult of circumstances."
"The worst tragedy,
for any person, is to bury your child," he said.
Deshon Johnson had helped
his mother, who had been involved in her own disabling auto accident years
earlier, has permanent nerve damage to the right side of her body and walks
with difficulty, to cook, clean and get to doctors' appointments.
Naomi Johnson was
dependent on her son to get through the day, "and that magnifies the
effect of losing him," Schenerman said. "I shudder every time I think
of the kid."
Schenerman said he had no
information about the bus driver's years of experience and what, if any,
disciplinary action was taken against him or her. The attorney said he has not
filed suit against NJ Transit or Coach USA, but he has described himself as the
lawyer representing Naomi Johnson "for the civil matter" and he
declined to go into specifics about the circumstances of the crash, saying
"I would rather not try the case in public."
Naomi Johnson could not
be immediately reached for comment by phone or email.
Contact Dan Prochilo at
prochilo@northjersey.com
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