A familiar face to law enforcement, a Tennessee repeat offender finds himself behind bars once again, with online court records revealing he’s confronting a series of fresh charges connected to an alleged incident of domestic violence.
According to records from the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office, 34-year-old Johnthony Walker has been detained at a Nashville facility as of Wednesday, now dealing with seven additional charges stemming from this recent altercation.
Walker’s encounters with the judicial system are far from novel. A decade ago, he was convicted of negligent homicide following a tragic school bus crash that resulted in the deaths of six children and left many others injured.
Furthermore, Walker, who made headlines due to the disastrous crash, had also been indicted on statutory rape charges, compounding his legal troubles.
Back in 2016, Walker was serving as a school bus driver for a district in Chattanooga. During this time, he operated the vehicle at dangerous speeds while transporting elementary schoolchildren, leading to one of the most heart-wrenching accidents in the area’s history.
A file photo of the crashed school bus on the scene of the accident in 2016. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
Not only was he driving at high speeds, but court records say he was also driving on an unauthorized route when he swerved and hit a mailbox and telephone pole, causing the bus to flip and smash into a tree.
Walker was convicted two years later in 2018, and sentenced to four years in prison, records show.
Two years after the deadly bus crash conviction, in 2020, the Davidson County District Attorney says Walker pleaded guilty to rape.
Walker was sentenced to six years and one month in prison, to run consecutively to his four-year sentence in the deadly school bus crash case, and was ordered to register as a sex offender.
Johnthony Walker was sentenced to four years in prison. (Doug Strickland/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP)
Unrelated to the bus crash and rape conviction, Walker was booked into jail on Monday on charges including aggravated assault by strangulation, aggravated burglary, child abuse, interference with an emergency call, and three charges relating to sex-offender violations.