Children are taken to a warming bus as parents wait for news after a bus crashed into a day care center in Laval, Quebec, on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press via AP)
By Rob Gillies
Police have charged a bus driver with first-degree murder after he drove his vehicle at a high speed into a day care center north of Montreal, killing two children, injuring six and leaving authorities searching for a motive.
Witnesses say that after Wednesday's crash, the 51-year-old driver, identified as Pierre Ny St-Amand, stepped out of the bus, stripped off his clothes and started screaming.
“He was just yelling; there were no words coming out of his mouth,” Hamdi Benchaabane said.
A neighbor who ran to the center in Laval, Quebec, said she saw children screaming and crying and watched a mother collapse.
St-Amand is facing nine charges including first degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and assault causing bodily harm. He appeared in court via video late Wednesday from a hospital room and will remain detained.
A senior Canadian government official said the crash was not a terrorist act and did not pose a threat to national security. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The driver had worked for Societe de transport de Laval for 10 years. He had no criminal history and a clean work record, police officials and Laval Mayor Stéphane Boyer said at two separate news conferences.
“As of now, we don’t know the motive for the crime," police spokesperson Erika Landry said.
Boyer said "there is a theory that it was an intentional act, but that remains to be confirmed by the investigation,
Laval Police Chief Pierre Brochet said authorities are interviewing the driver.
The dead children were both 4 years old, identified in the documents only by their initials. Six children were hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening, Brochet said.
The day care is located at the end of a driveway off a cul-de-sac. There is a bus stop on the cul-de-sac, but the driver would have had to veer off the road and head down the long driveway to hit the building.
“There were no signs of skidmarks ... He went directly into the day care,” said another eyewitness, Mario Sirois.
Sirois' wife, Ginette Lamoureux, the neighbor who ran into the day care shortly after the crash, said the driver was hysterical.
“His eyes were like popping out,” she said.
Benchaabane said he and three parents had to strike the driver in order to subdue him, before police cuffed him.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his office was “following the situation closely.”
Members of Parliament observed a moment of silence in Ottawa.
Wearing a hospital gown and in a bed, St-Amand was alert but unresponsive during his video appearance as the judge and his lawyer tried to get him to speak. He only nodded his head a few times when asked by his lawyer, Julien Lespérance Hudon, if he understood he was appearing in a courtroom.
The case returns to court on Feb. 17.
Neighbors described the suspect as a quiet, pleasant father of two young girls. One man, Thanh-Ry Tran, said his family got together with the suspect’s family a few times a year, and their wives would sometimes help each other in picking up or dropping off children. He said the suspect had never shown signs of distress.
Another neighbor, Nader Abou-Said, said he would exchange pleasant greetings with the suspect, and would often see him playing with his daughters in the backyard.
“How can you go out and play with your kids and then go kill kids?” he said.
Elon Musk buys Twitter, a Texas mother gets a stay of execution, and one very lucky job-seeker could become Chief Taco Officer. Here is all the news you Need2Know for Tuesday, April 26, 2022.
Data from a Slack Future Forum survey shows employees returning full-time to the office are not thrilled with their experience. Sheela Subramanian, vice [resident of the Future Forum, joined Cheddar News to talk about how worker satisfaction is worsening in returning to the office compared to those workers with flexible schedules. "Employers need to actually empower their teams to create team level agreements and also skill their managers to better lead distributed teams because everybody's work is different," Subramanian noted.
UPSIDE foods, a company that makes cultivated meat products, recently raised $400 million in a Series C round.
UPSIDE says it's developing a way to grow real meat, poultry, and seafood, without the need to raise animals for human consumption. It's a process that gets the attention of some big-name backers, including Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Dr. Uma Valeti, Founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Samantha Tan, professional racing driver and team owner of Samantha Tan Racing, joins Cheddar News to talk the motorsport community, being an ambassador for the AAPI Victory Alliance, and her mental health.
Hosts of the new MTV ]show "Help! I'm in a Secret Relationship," recording artist Travis Mills and actor Rahne Jones, joined Cheddar News to talk about the new show and how sheds light on romantic partners who are keeping their other halves hidden away from other parts of their lives. "Travis and I go in and we investigate and figure out what is going on in hopes that we can sit the two parties down and have a resolution, a conversation, a productive conversation, in hopes that the relationships remain intact," said Jones. "But unfortunately that does not happen all the time, which is where, where the drama, where the drama comes." Mills added that “I honestly think that the pandemic gave people who want to hide their partner a really good excuse."
Once called the rent-forever generation, Millennials are bucking the trend. But just as they age into their prime home-buying years, they’ve run up against a red hot housing market exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Cheddar News senior Reporter Chloe Aiello went to Hudson, N.Y., to learn more.
Every year on April 8th, we celebrate the deliciousness of empanadas for National Empanada Day! This time, Cheddar's News Wrap was joined by New York's own Empanada Mama to try some of interesting flavors.
The Biden administration is making changes to federal student loan programs, bringing more than 3.6 million people closer to debt forgiveness under the new rules, providing 40,000 with immediate debt cancellation, and allowing several thousand more with older loans to get some relief. Rob Franek, Editor-In-Chief of the Princeton Review, joined Cheddar News to break down how these changes might impact the lives of student loan borrowers and addresses some of the pushback against doing even more. "This is not a bankruptcy bailout of industries that are supporting the American economy," he said. These are for students right now who would otherwise be hobbled financially if they didn't experience some sort of forgiveness overall."
