D.A.’s Office Won’t Charge Bus Driver in Death of Boy, 7 : Jurisprudence: A prosecutor said there is insufficient evidence to for filing an infraction. It was the child’s first day on the school bus.

Prosecutors said Friday they will not file charges against a Capistrano Unified School District bus driver whose 7-year-old passenger was run down and killed after stepping off the school bus at the wrong stop.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Marc Kelly said there was insufficient evidence to file a traffic infraction against Jack Randall Rueweler, 38, who was driving the school bus when Tommy Lanni of Laguna Niguel was hit by a pickup truck.

“We’ve determined this is not an appropriate case for the criminal arena,” Kelly said.

But Tommy’s mother, Barbara Lanni, said Friday she feels the bus driver was “grossly negligent” by not caring for her son, who had recently moved from New York to Orange County and was riding the school bus for the first time when he was killed on April 22.

“I got on the bus myself that morning and told the driver Tommy was new and (the driver) agreed to take care of him,” she said. “It’s a bus driver’s responsibility to know where the children get off. If he was doing his job, Tommy would be alive.”

The Lannis have filed a claim against the school district, alleging that the driver acted improperly by neither flashing his lights nor escorting the first-grader across Aliso Niguel Road and Camino Baga in Laguna Niguel. Barbara Lanni said the bus driver also erred in allowing her son to exit at the wrong stop. The family is seeking $10 million in damages.

Attorneys for the couple said bus drivers on the same route continued for several days after the accident to allow children to get off the bus without flashing their lights or stopping traffic.

“This is a widespread problem,” said attorney Roland J. Amundsen. “The decision by prosecutors should not be seen as a vindication.”

A school bus driver is required by state law to activate flashing red lights when children will be crossing the street.

School officials said Rueweler did not know Tommy Lanni was crossing the street, since the youngster lived on the same side of the street as the bus stop. Officials say the boy may have been disoriented when he started to cross the street.

“In order to find the bus driver guilty of that violation, we must show he had actual knowledge that children were crossing the street,” Kelly said. “We interviewed a number of people and found that was not the case.

“It was a tragedy. I tell you, your heart just goes out to the family at a time like this.”

The driver of the pickup truck also has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, officials said.

The Lannis say they are determined to make sure a similar tragedy does not occur again.

They have been working with state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) to get emergency legislation enacted that would require all school bus drivers to make a “flashing lights” stop whenever children get off school buses.

School district officials said the investigation by prosecutors confirmed the results of their own investigation. Rueweler could not be reached for comment Friday.