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Main: Amanda Davila and Fajr Williams riding the bus on July 17, 2023 (WCBS). Inset: Davila (Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office).
A 28-year-old school bus monitor in New Jersey will be going to prison for failing to check on the 6-year-old girl she was assigned to protect as the child was strangled to death by the safety harness of her wheelchair on the way to school.
A Somerset County jury on Monday found Amanda Davila guilty on one count of endangering the welfare of a child in the death of young Fajr Williams, who lived with a rare chromosomal disorder called Emanuel syndrome, was nonverbal, and required the use of a wheelchair.
Jurors let Davila off on the more serious charges, finding her not guilty on one count each of aggravated manslaughter and reckless manslaughter.
During the trial, prosecutors played surveillance footage from inside the bus and jurors watched as Fajr continued to slump lower and lower in her chair as she was being strangled by the harness, New York CBS affiliate WCBS reported. The footage showed Davila sitting one seat in front of her wearing headphones and using her cellphone, never turning around to check on the child she was employed to care for.
Davila’s reportedly testified last week where she conceded that she made a mistake by not turning to check on Fajr and apologized to the victim’s family.
“I was scrolling through apps to go onto Instagram and texting,” Davila reportedly testified last week.
However, she also claimed that the child’s family sent her on the bus strapped into her wheelchair harness incorrectly.
“It’s the parent’s responsibility to buckle the top and bottom parts,” Davila’s defense attorney Michael Policastro reportedly said after Monday’s verdict. “The parents, I guess she delegated to her 14-year-old daughter that day, did put the top part. She didn’t put the bottom, and that’s why the little girl slipped. If that bottom harness was fastened, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Fajr’s mother, Najmah Nash, pushed back on Davila’s theory about what led to her daughter’s death.
“It was her fault for not doing her job,” Nash said on Monday. “We did our job. We got my baby to the bus. She was strapped in, and that’s a fact. So, any description, or any disbelief in that, is shame on you.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, officers with the Franklin Township Police Department at about 9:04 a.m. on Monday, July 17, 2023, responded to an emergency call at the Claremont School in the 100 block of Claremont Road regarding a report of an unresponsive 6-year-old girl. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders located the child and began performing CPR.
Emergency Medical Services personnel transported the child to a local hospital’s intensive care unit where doctors pronounced her dead. Detectives from the Franklin Township Police Department along with detectives from the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Unit were dispatched to the scene and took over the case.
Investigators say they learned the victim was attending the school’s extended-year program and was transported to and from the facility in a transit school bus. Upon entering the bus on the morning of July 17, 2023, the victim’s wheelchair was secured in the rear of the bus with a four-point harness by Davila, who was the monitor assigned to that particular bus, prosecutors say.
“During the transport, a series of bumps in the road caused the 6-year-old to slump in her wheelchair seat making the 4-point harness which secured her to the chair to become tight around her neck ultimately blocking her airway,” a news release from multiple agencies said. “During the ride, the school bus monitor, Amanda Davila was seated towards the front of the bus and was utilizing a cellular telephone while wearing ear bud headphone devices in both ears. The investigation revealed that this was in violation of policies and procedures.”
Davila will appear in court again on March 7, for her sentencing hearing. She faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in a state correctional facility.