Six autistic children injured after school bus flips over at busy New York City intersection after striking a taxi 'that had run a red light'

A school bus carrying six special needs students flipped over after it struck a taxi that witnesses said had ran through a red light.

All the students suffered minor injuries along with two adults inside the bus after the accident which occurred at 3.40 pm in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood said the NYPD.

Surveillance footage from a convenience store captured the dramatic collision and shows the bus turn over trapping the terrified children inside.

All of the students are between 10 and 12 years old, police said. They attend P53K and the Academy for Environmental Leadership, a schools spokeswoman said.

'They were completely hysterical. I mean, they were screaming, yelling, jumping around,' said witness John Denmark to CBS New York. 

'They had no idea what was going on or how they were going to get out of there.'

'Once we got the door open, I just immediately jumped in the bus, and just started trying to get people out as fast as possible,' he said, 'because I saw blood on the ceiling of the bus, so I didn’t know if that had been a child or if that had been one of the adults.'

Witnesses offered different accounts about what led to the smash-up.

David Blaize, 53, said to the New York Post, 'The cab was going way too fast. How do you hit a bus and make it flip over if you’re going the speed limit?'

However, Hamdi Igheim, 36, said the taxi was not breaking the law.

'The light had just turned green and the cabbie was inching his way out into the intersection. I saw the bus coming and it looked like he was trying to beat the light,' Igheim said. 

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Dublin

Taxi driver gets 3 years for cleaver attack

A taxi driver who attacked a passenger with a meat cleaver after refusing to give the victim his change has been jailed for three years.

Bolanle Banjo, 50, ( a good old fashioned Irish name) kept driving the taxi while swiping at the passenger. The victim escaped by jumping from the moving taxi and rolling out of the way of oncoming traffic. 

Banjo of New Ireland Rd, Rialto, had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assault causing harm to Peter Brazil, production of an article intending to cause harm and dangerous driving on Neilstown road on August 8, 2011. He was convicted of all counts. 

Judge Patrick McCartan also disqualified Banjo from driving for 20 years. 

Detective Garda Padraic Jennings told Ronan Kennedy, prosecuting, that Mr Brazil was on temporary release from Mountjoy Prison and had gone to the prison to sign on as part of his release conditions. After doing this, he flagged down Banjo’s taxi and asked to go to Clondalkin. 

He noticed the driver had plastic partition all around where he was sitting and thought that must be for the driver’s protection. 

Banjo told the passenger he would have to pay in advance and Mr Brazil gave him €15 through a hole in the partition. When they arrived in Clondalkin, the fare on the meter was for less than €15 and Mr Brazil asked for his change. 

The taxi driver then became aggressive and refused to give any money back. Mr Brazil reached out to take Banjo’s taxi identification in order to take down his name and taxi number. 

Banjo struck the victim in the left arm with what Mr Brazil thought was a cut-throat razor. He said blood squirted everywhere. He said that Banjo cursed and shouted racist and abusive remarks while making circular swipes at him with the knife through the hole in the perspex partition. 

Mr Brazil opened his door to try and get away but Banjo had driven off again. He told Mr Brazil he would cut his throat and called him a “junkie bastard”. 

The court heard that Banjo was driving furiously and dangerously, driving on the wrong side against traffic and causing other drivers to swerve to avoid a crash. 

Mr Brazil jumped from the car onto the roadway and rolled to the side of the road to avoid oncoming cars. Gardaí found him in a distressed state with blood pouring from both hands. He had held onto the taxi driver’s ID card. 

Judge McCartan said it was clear that Banjo suffers from a psychotic delusion.