Within hours of 7-year-old Ngone Talla’s death on a Cincinnati Public Schools bus in September, Superintendent Shauna Murphy told school board members that the bus driver and monitor had not strapped the child in appropriately — a detail the district did not share publicly, and that Ngone’s own father says he learned only this week, according to district emails released Friday and reported by The Cincinnati Enquirer.
The emails were released Nov. 13 after The Enquirer filed a public records request. In an email sent at 8:39 p.m. on Sept. 16, the day Ngone died, Murphy wrote that she had spoken with First Student president John Keening: “I spoke to Mr. John Keening from First Student. He shared the driver and monitor on Ngone’s bus did not strap her on appropriately, causing her death,” Murphy wrote, according to The Enquirer.
Ngone, a second-grade student at Roselawn Condon School, was nonverbal and used a wheelchair. She died Sept. 16 after a bus operated by First Student, the company the district contracts with for transportation, carried her about 8 miles from school to her family’s home in the 4200 block of Colerain Avenue in Northside, according to previous Enquirer reporting. According to 911 calls, she was unresponsive when the bus arrived home; her mother discovered her, and her father, Abdoula Talla, called emergency services. She was taken to Cincinnati Children’s, where she was pronounced dead.
For nearly two months, few details were released about the death. The autopsy report was recently made public, declaring the death accidental but noting a “delay in care prior to emergency services contact.” The autopsy states Ngone was asphyxiated after her neck and chin were compressed by the wheelchair restraint system, and that death occurred within minutes, according to The Enquirer.
On Nov. 13, Abdoula Talla told The Enquirer in a phone call that he had not been told about his daughter not being properly strapped in. The Enquirer reported that First Student had not provided a response to its questions about the email by the time of publication.
Cincinnati Public Schools issued a statement Nov. 13 after The Enquirer published the email’s contents. “Ngone Talla was a beloved child, and her death remains devastating for her family and the Roselawn Condon community,” the statement said. “Superintendent Shauna Murphy’s September 16 message to Board members reflected the information available to Cincinnati Public Schools that evening.” The statement reiterated that the coroner’s office has ruled the death accidental, and said the district continues to hold Ngone’s family close.
The Cincinnati Police Department’s investigation is ongoing and no charges have been filed, a department spokesperson told The Enquirer. The district told The Enquirer, in response to a records request, that First Student removed the driver and monitor from Ngone’s bus route pending the investigation; whether the two were placed on leave or terminated is a question the district referred to First Student, since both are the contractor’s employees, and First Student did not answer it before publication, The Enquirer reported.
The district’s contract gives it leverage over who works its routes: CPS can request that First Student remove employees “deemed unsuitable for the performance of services,” according to the contract, which continues until June 30, 2027, The Enquirer reported. School Board President Brandon Craig previously told The Enquirer the incident is being investigated, and the district has not announced any changes as a result of Ngone’s death.
Video is another open front. First Student is required to equip its buses with two-way radio and video surveillance under its contract, The Enquirer reported, and the vendor shared video with Cincinnati police the same day Ngone died. The district denied The Enquirer’s request for the footage, saying First Student did not distribute any footage to the district; records show the company arranged for CPS officials, including Murphy, to view the video the week after Ngone’s death.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. We know, from the district’s own emails and the coroner’s findings reported by The Enquirer, how Ngone died and what the superintendent was told the same evening. We are still waiting on the outcome of the police investigation, on whether the driver and monitor remain employed, and on whether the district or First Student will change how students who use wheelchairs are secured and monitored on its buses — questions other Southwest Ohio districts are watching too, as Winton Woods’ levy fight and today’s Hilliard resignation keep school oversight in the headlines.
Those who taught Ngone remember a different story than the investigations. “She enjoyed her people at school. We were her people. Her classmates were her people,” her teacher, Lauren Borcherding, said after the funeral service, according to The Enquirer. What happens next is the police investigation’s conclusion — and the answers a family says it is still owed about the ride home on Sept. 16.
Photo: The Cincinnati skyline across the Ohio River. Photo: Ynsalh, CC BY-SA 4.0