Former MTA bus driver Michelle Washington was arrested Tuesday and booked at the 113th Precinct in Jamaica for the fatal hit-and-run collision that killed a St. Albans woman in August.
Washington, 54, of 222nd St. in Queens Village, was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to use due care, but she was not charged with leaving the scene of an accident.
Washington was operating a QM2 MTA bus on the night of Tuesday, Aug. 6, when she struck 31-year-old Amesha Mishael Keys as she was crossing Baisley Boulevard near Bedell Street, just two blocks from her home. Washington did not remain at the scene.
Police from the 113th Precinct responded to a 911 call of a pedestrian struck at the location and found Keys lying on the roadway unconscious and unresponsive. EMS rushed her to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead the next day as a result of injuries sustained from being struck by the bus.
An investigation by the NYPD’s Highway District Collision Investigation Squad determined that Washington was traveling westbound on Baisley Boulevard, approaching Bedell Street at 10:36 p.m. and was making a lefthand turn onto southbound Bedell Street, and struck Keys.
Washington, who joined NYC Transit in April 2022, drove away from the scene.
The MTA suspended her the next day after she passed routine drug and alcohol testing. The agency later terminated her.
“The bus operator no longer works for the MTA, and we will continue to support the investigation as we have from the outset,” MTA Spokesperson Lucas Bejarano said on Wednesday.
