Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Several children told school officials that the boy had been pushed.
NORTHAMPTON, Pa. (AP) — The death of a middle school student struck by a school bus Monday morning has been ruled a homicide.
Twelve-year-old Dakota Galusha was struck by a bus around 7:10 a.m. Monday outside Northampton Middle School. The Lehigh County coroner’s office ruled his death a homicide after an autopsy later in the day.
Northampton School District Superintendent Linda Firestone said some students told school officials that Galusha had been pushed, causing the accident. She said investigators hoped surveillance footage from a camera near the site would help clarify what happened.
Firestone said the boy had just been dropped off at the school by a parent and was climbing the hill to the school’s entrance when the accident occurred.
“The hardest part of this whole situation is we need to continue to focus on student safety because this is a child who didn’t even make it to the classroom,” Fire- stone said.
Students and others who knew Galusha described him as funny and athletic.
“It’s hitting everybody pretty hard right now,” said John Emmons, the president of the Northampton Area Athletic Association. “It’s kind of unbelievable that this happened.”
Galusha was taken by ambulance to St. Luke’s Hospital in Fountain Hill and was pronounced dead just before 8 a.m.
A county prosecutor said school district police and state police are trying to reconstruct the accident.
Counselors were brought in to help students cope with the death, Firestone said.