Law Allowed Bus Driver to Go Free After Boy’s Death

The air was cool and the ground wet, so Ryan Sayles wore a jacket May 17 as he stepped off a school bus in front of his Kansas City home.

Halfway across Missouri, the Statehouse was quiet, the legislative session over.

The actions of the lawmakers and the 14-year-old would be linked in death.

The drawstring of Ryan’s jacket got caught in the bus door. The driver, Saladin Anderson, pulled away.

The ninth-grader’s best buddy, Conrad Wright, said Ryan “ran alongside it knocking on the door, trying to get the bus to stop. Then I saw him fly up in the air and hit the ground.” Conrad, 12, said Ryan fell to his death under the big wheels after keeping up with the bus for half a block.

Only days earlier, the Legislature had passed a bill that allowed Anderson to avoid serious penalties for careless and imprudent driving.

“We screwed up,” said Rep. Gary Witt. “Occasionally, we make a mistake.”

Witt has since helped the state House pass an amendment to restore the higher penalties. The Senate has not acted, but Gov. Mel Carnahan considers the change a high priority, his spokesman said.

The intent of last year’s law was to lower the criminal status of speeding to avoid costly, time-consuming jury trials.

But the legislation failed to specify the targeted subsection of the law, and as a result also reduced careless and imprudent driving from a misdemeanor to an infraction.

Under the old law, the offense carried up to a year in jail and a fine of $1,000. An infraction has a fine of up to $200 and no jail time.

Circuit Judge Jay Daugherty found Anderson guilty of careless and imprudent driving and placed him without explanation on probation for a year, after which his driving record could be wiped clean.

Jackson County Prosecutor Claire McCaskill said she would have sought a tougher sentence and a jury trial under the old law.

“The loss of life here resulted in nothing more than an aggravated parking ticket,” she said, “and I don’t think that is appropriate.”

Sen. Harold Caskey, whose legislation contained the weakened penalty, questioned why prosecutors didn’t file tougher charges.

But the prosecutor said no other charge fit. “We had sufficient evidence to prove operating in a reckless manner, but not enough evidence to charge something more,” she said.

Ryan’s grandfather, George Sayles, said he is angry and disappointed with Missouri government.

“Death was involved,” he said, “and that bus driver should have to pay some sort of personal penalty for what he’s done. He should have to repent.”

Sayles added: “I am not a vengeful person. I just want what’s right.”

Anderson, 33, who is no longer a bus driver, has suffered enough, said his lawyer, Chuck McKeon.

“This is something he lives with every day. It is a tragic accident, and it is a horrible, horrible thing that happened to him,” McKeon said.

Anderson is being sued for wrongful death by the Sayles family. Also named in the lawsuit are the Kansas City School District and the bus company, Vancom Inc., which the Sayleses contend did not properly train Anderson or review his driving record.

Anderson has been cited since 1992 for speeding in Missouri and Illinois, and was ticketed in Missouri for improper lane usage.

McCaskill, a former state representative, said there is a lesson for legislators in Ryan’s death.

“Everything you do in the Capitol has real-life consequences,” the prosecutor said, “or sometimes real-death consequences.”