Charges: Driver of school bus that ran over 6-year-old failed training, ‘should not have been able to drive’
The driver of a bus that ran over and seriously hurt a 6-year-old in Brooklyn Park in January shouldn’t have even been behind the wheel of the bus in the first place, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
Nasteho Farah Kahiye, 39, of Minneapolis, was charged Tuesday with gross misdemeanor reckless driving and misdemeanor charges of careless driving and failure of school bus driver duty.
Those charges stem from an incident on the afternoon of Jan. 25 in the 8700 block of Edinbrook Crossing North.
RELATED: Police: 6-year-old’s ‘lower extremities’ run over by school bus in Brooklyn Park
Brooklyn Park police were called to the scene and found that a 6-year-old boy had his lower extremities run over by a school bus.
Charging documents state that the boy had just gotten off the bus Kahiye was driving when his jacket got stuck on a light. While he tried to get Kahiye’s attention, the “beeping” sound from the bus backing up covered up his calls and the bus ran over the boy.
According to the filing, the boy suffered multiple pelvic fractures, a traumatic brain injury, a traumatic rupture of his diaphram and a liver laceration.
Witnesses told police they felt the bump from the bus running the boy over and said Kahiye wasn’t paying attention to students getting off the bus because he was “consumed with yelling at other students.”
Court documents add that Kahiye “had failed to complete several required training courses and should not have been able to drive the school bus with these shortcomings.” They also note that state law prohibits buses from backing up at spots where students are picked up or dropped off unless everyone is on the bus at the time.
“Defendant failed to exercise diligence regarding the whereabouts of the unloaded students prior to putting the bus in reverse, leading to (the 6-year-old) being run over,” the complaint adds.
Kahiye isn’t in custody but is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 28. He faces up to a year in jail on the reckless driving charge and 90 days in jail on each of the other two charges.