Duty Death: Officer Craig Story - [Arlington]
Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON, Texas — An Arlington police motorcycle officer was killed Wednesday morning in a fiery crash with a school bus.
The officer was identified by Arlington police spokeswoman Tiara Ellis Richard as Craig Story.
The bus driver and the students aboard the bus were unhurt, she said.
The bus was carrying nine students ranging in age from 6 to 12. The students attend Crow, Ditto and Dunn elementary schools, and Bailey and Young junior high schools, the Arlington school dsitrict said.
The collision occurred about 7:15 a.m. at South Cooper Street and West Inwood Drive, near Arlington High School. Richard said investigators were still trying to piece together how the crash occurred.
“We don’t know who hit who,” she said. “We’re still trying to determine the cause of the wreck.”
But a witness, Mark Smith of Arlington, said it appeared to him that the motorcycle officer may have been in pursuit of someone.
He said the officer was badly burned in the crash.
“That motorcycle was just a big ball of flame,” Smith said.
Smith said he was in his car on Inwood facing east, about to turn left (north) onto Cooper, when he saw the motorcycle coming north through the intersection.
He said the officer hit his lights and siren as he got to the intersection, as if to signal that he was coming through.
“He was going pretty fast,” he said.
Smith said he heard the collision but didn’t see it.
However, based on what he saw immediately afterward, he said, it looked like the motorcycle had struck the side of the bus.
Smith said he abd another man tried to rescue the officer.
“We took jackets and tried to put out the flames,” he said. “It was just a mess. It was just in flames. There were pieces everywhere. He was off his bike, in the middle of it.
He said the school bus didn’t appear to be seriously damaged. The driver, in fact, was able to drive a few feet and pull over after the collision.
Fabian Monroy said he heard the collision shortly after seeing the officer drive past the car wash he manages. Then he saw the aftermath.
Arlington police officers collect evidence Wednesday morning near Arlington High School after a motorcycle officer was killed in a crash with a school bus.
“Everything was in flames,” he said
Cooper Street was closed for hours after the crash.
Richard, the Arlington police spokesperson, said the students on the bus were taken immediately to meet with grief counselors at Arlington High.
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