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Benjamin Clague's Facebook profile includes this photo of him driving an empty CyRide bus. -
Bus driver was arrested for the Dec. 14 hit-and-run on ISU campus that killed Emmalee Jacobs.
Ames police have charged a CyRide Bus driver with the hit-and-run death of Urbana student Emmalee Jacobs on Dec. 14.
Benjamin Clague, 23, of Gilbert, has been charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in a death (a class D felony) and failure to obey a traffic control device, a simple misdemeanor.
He was arrested today after the Ames PD received information from other CyRide staff members.
At approximately 7:04 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 14, 2015, an Iowa State University police officer found Jacobs lying in the street near the intersection of Lincoln Way and Ash Avenue, just west of Hilton Coliseum on the ISU campus. Officers performed CPR until emergency medical personnel arrived. She was transported to Mary Greeley Medical Center, where she later died.
CyRide is the city bus system for Ames, Iowa. It is a one of the biggest bus systems in the state of Iowa, a collaboration between the city of Ames, Iowa State University, and ISU's Government of the Student Body http://www.cyride.com/. ISU engineering students help design the fuels used for the vehicles.
Court records indicate that Clague has had a clean driving record, with only one traffic citation, for speeding, in 2006. He is not a current ISU student.
Jacobs, 18, the daughter of Ann and Bradley Jacobs, graduated from Center Point-Urbana High School in 2015. Last year, she was one of the 10 winners of an Eastern Iowa REC $1,000 scholarship. Her biography accompanying that story contains the following information about her career goals: With her sights set on an engineering degree, Emmalee plans to seek a career that challenges her mentally, allows her work collaboratively to find solutions, and is rewarding. She believes a career in engineering will help her to develop skills such as creativity and logical reasoning.
At CPU, Emmalee earned 2015 "Best of Class" honors from KWWL-TV and was a member of the volleyball team.
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1. CyRide is the city bus system for Ames, Iowa. It is a collaboration between the City of Ames, Iowa State University (ISU), and ISU's Government of the Student Body (from Cyride.com)
2. CyRide turned over all the video from every bus that was on that route that day. That would be several buses and they would need to review all it.
3. The reports I've seen on TV stated that the original copies of the video from the bus in question showed the driver stopping at the first stop after the intersection and getting out to visually inspect the bus. There was also no Audio (to reduce file size). The Police then needed to get a second copy of the video with audio which there was a sound as the bus went through the intersection. They then needed to see if it was normal for the driver to stop and make visual a inspection of the bus at that stop. That means looking over footage from other days and other drivers. TO this point, there have not stated that the video shows the accident happen, only audio and the actions afterwards. This all takes time and I'm guessing a prosecutor who thinks that it is enough evidence to convict.
I'm glad they have someone and that the family may be able to have some closure.