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Officials: Bus driver lied
School officials say a fabricated list omitted that a girl was supposed to be dropped off on the west side of the street.
By THOMAS C. TOBIN and GRAHAM BRINK
Published February 17, 2005
LARGO - The Pinellas school bus driver involved in the Friday traffic death of third-grader Brooke Ingoldsby lied to investigators by fabricating a list of bus stops while still at the accident scene, district officials said Wednesday.
The hastily faked handwritten document muddied the picture for investigators over the weekend as they sought to learn why Brooke was dropped off on the east side of busy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street N when her home was on the west side.
William A. Ralston's original handwritten list of bus stops clearly indicated Brooke was to be dropped off in a parking lot on the west side of King Street at 90th Avenue N. Ralston showed that list to St. Petersburg police Officer Joseph Pratt at the accident scene, but later destroyed it.
Investigators say Ralston quickly fabricated another handwritten list of bus stops that omitted any mention that Brooke needed to be dropped off on the west side of the street.
An hour later, while still at the scene, he gave the fabricated list to a school district investigator.
On Wednesday his lie began to unravel, even as mourners filed into a Pinellas Park church for the girl's funeral.
Officer Pratt told district spokesman Ron Stone about 10 a.m. that the list Ralston showed him did not jibe with the list pictured in a St. Petersburg Times diagram published Tuesday.
Ralston, 75, admitted lying when confronted by a school district investigator on Wednesday, officials said.
On Wednesday evening, Ralston answered the door at his pink stucco house with neatly trimmed trees and fresh-cut grass, in the Bonnie Glynn subdivision of Pinellas Park.
"I'm devastated," he said, looking downward. "But life must go on."
School officials were clearly disturbed at a news conference late Wednesday afternoon, having told the public Monday that the school system would be open and forthright about the accident.
Superintendent Clayton Wilcox, reached in Texas at an education conference, called Ralston's actions "regrettable and hurtful."
"All of us in the district are in some way embarrassed but we're just going to move on," he said.
Ralston, a relief driver, said he knew he was the focus of Wednesday's news conference but didn't want to talk about it.
Wilcox said a team of district counselors went to Ralston's home earlier.
"I was concerned about the driver," he said. "We can be kind and decent and still do the right thing."
He also said he understood why Ralston might have panicked after the accident.
The district placed Ralston on administrative leave with pay pending further action. At a news conference Monday, Wilcox praised him as a veteran driver who showed good instincts under difficult circumstances. He said the driver would not be disciplined.
On Wednesday, however, Ralston's dismissal appeared assured.
"I just don't see how we can have people who work for us that lie," Wilcox said.
The principal at Brooke's school, James B. Sanderlin Elementary, informed the girl's family of the latest development, Wilcox said.
Deputy superintendent Nancy Zambito said the district has no reason to doubt the other parts of Ralston's account, including that he asked the girl if she was getting off at the correct stop. The 8-year-old girl said she was.
An SUV struck and killed Brooke, Ralston's last passenger that day, as she tried to cross the five-lane road during rush hour.
Ralston had never driven the route before. He was asked to fill in Friday because the route was left open by the regular driver, who was granted his request to drive another route.
The district plans to retrace its investigation to ensure no one else has lied, Wilcox said.
According to the district's account so far, the story of the ill-fated route began Friday afternoon when Ralston was recruited to drive a bus serving Sanderlin and Lakewood elementaries.
A computer at the bus compound in Largo printed an old version of the route with only four stops. The correct version was supposed to have 13 stops. The problem was a software glitch the district had been aware of for days and was working to fix.
Ralston realized the miscue after he finished the four stops and still had children on his bus. He stopped the bus and radioed for help. A supervisor found the correct version of the route and read the remaining stops, including Brooke's.
Ralston wrote them down on the back of the flawed route sheet - or so the district thought Monday. At the time it was thought he omitted the notation for the west side of King Street because children on his bus were noisy.
The noise factor partially removed blame from Ralston, leading the district to the early conclusion that the girl's death could be traced to a series of small mistakes.
On Wednesday, the focus shifted to driver error.
The district hired Ralston in July 2003, one of 203 drivers recruited to handle the increased load of the school choice plan. A full-time employee earning $11.29 an hour, he fills in on routes and performs other tasks.
Officer Pratt talked to Ralston at the accident scene soon after the crash, said St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffitt.
Ralston showed Pratt a sheet of paper on which he had written the stops that the dispatcher had called in to him.
Pratt saw the words "west side" in parentheses next to "90th Avenue and Ninth Street," Brooke's stop, Proffitt said. Ninth Street is officially called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street.
The officer "was very confident about what he heard and what he saw at the scene," Proffitt said. "He had talked to several people about it, including me, soon after the accident."
Pratt, a veteran traffic homicide investigator, saw the newspaper Tuesday and alerted his supervisor.
Ralston will not face criminal charges for falsifying the report, Proffitt said. He noted the driver gave the false information to the school district, not the officer.
One bright spot, Wilcox said, is that Monday's bare-all news conference ultimately exposed the lie.
"The best light is the public light," he said. "You tell the truth. And, while it may be painful, you get to a better place."
--Times staff writer David Karp contributed to this report.
[Last modified February 17, 2005, 10:32:30]
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