29 March 2024
BASTROP COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — On Friday, the concrete truck driver involved in the fatal school bus crash that left two people dead, was arrested in Bastrop County, Texas. Court documents said he admitted to smoking marijuana and consuming cocaine within 24 hours of the crash.
The Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed to KXAN Friday that Jerry Hernandez, 42, was arrested on a warrant for criminally negligent homicide. Additionally, he was also arrested on an unrelated warrant for a bond violation out of Hays County, according to DPS. Both warrants were served Friday afternoon at a home in Bastrop County, and Hernandez was taken into custody without incident, according to DPS.
Two people died in the crash — 5-year-old Ulises Rodriguez Montoya who was on the bus and 33-year-old Ryan Wallace who was traveling in a car behind the bus.
According to the arrest affidavit, Hernandez told investigators he smoked marijuana around 10 p.m. the night before the crash, as well as admitted to consuming cocaine around 1 a.m. the morning of the crash.
Documents also showed Hernandez told police he slept about three hours the night before the crash.
On Thursday, DPS confirmed a warrant was issued for a specimen of Hernandez’s blood from the Bastrop District County Court in connection with the incident.
What led to the crash
On March 22, a bus carrying 44 Tom Green Elementary pre-K students and 11 adults was returning from a Hays Consolidated Independent School District (CISD) field trip to the Capital of Texas Zoo in Bastrop County when a concrete truck veered into the bus’ lane, hitting the front of the vehicle and causing it to roll over.
Hernandez told DPS there was a white SUV driving “approximately 2 car-lengths ahead of him and braked suddenly.” He said he swerved left into the center line to “avoid the SUV,” court documents said.
However, the school bus video shows no vehicles driving in the area ahead of Hernandez “prior to the crash,” according to the affidavit. Even if it was necessary to swerve, a crash sequence of events said Hernandez “could have swerved to the right rather than crossing the center line into oncoming traffic,” court documents said.
The crash
The crash occurred on State Highway 21 near Caldwell Road, and the Texas Department of Public Safety said its crash reconstruction team was investigating the incident.
Austin-Travis County EMS said it evaluated 53 people involved in the incident.
The bus did not have seat belts, according to Hays CISD. The district said about 40 other buses in its fleet also do not have seat belts.
Hays CISD Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright said it is “accelerating” the process for replacing those buses without seat belts.
“We are supposed to get our next round of buses in 3-4 weeks that all are equipped with seat belts that will make it where our entire fleet of route buses all have seat belts,” Wright previously told KXAN. “Then we’re going to accelerate with our Facilities and Bond Oversight Committee with the blessing of our School Board, to go out to replace our spare buses with buses that all have seat belts.”
The investigation
According to the federal Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse database, Hernandez “had a refusal for a reasonable suspicion test” on Sept. 2, 2020, “which would have warranted he be referred to a Substance Abuse Professional (SAP) for evaluation.” This means he should have been “removed from performing safety-sensitive functions” by the company he was driving for at this point in time, according to the affidavit.
Hernandez also had follow-up tests, one for marijuana on Dec. 15, 2022 and the other for cocaine on April 11, 2023, court documents said. His driving status for the company was “prohibited,” but he was still listed as “eligible” in the system, court documents said.
His status wasn’t updated because state driver’s licensing agencies aren’t “required to downgrade CDL statuses until” Nov. 18, 2024, court documents said. Furthermore, since he was driving a “concrete pump truck in intrastate commerce,” he was “exempted from the regulations,” court documents said.
Investigators met with the owner of FJM Concrete, LLC, which is the company that operates the concrete truck involved in the crash, according to the affidavit. The owner told investigators “there were no known mechanical problems or complaints with the truck involved in the crash.” The owner “had not verified” Hernandez’s CDL status through the clearinghouse data.
Kelly Wiley contributed to this story.