Girl hit at bus stop dies; man charged

Intoxication manslaughter suspect was speeding, police say

Adriana Pamela Gutierrez, an 8-year-old girl who loved to dance to Selena songs and play computer games, died Saturday, hours after being hit by a truck as she left her school bus.

Jose Sanchez Martinez, who was driving the truck, was charged Saturday with intoxication manslaughter and was being held in lieu of $100,000 bond. The charge is a felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison and a fine.

Adriana, a Linder Elementary School third-grader, was crossing Burton Drive about 3 p.m. Friday when she was hit. Martinez, who lives in the same apartment complex as the Gutierrez family, had been drinking with a friend when the men left Martinez's apartment to get food, a police report said.

Police spokesman Kevin Buchman said Martinez's vehicle was traveling in excess of 30 mph, the posted speed limit. Buchman did not know Martinez's exact blood-alcohol content.

Martinez was attempting to pass a school bus that was stopped with its lights flashing -- such a pass is illegal -- after he had passed several cars behind the bus when he hit Adriana, the report said. The force of the impact knocked the girl out of her tennis shoes and threw her almost 100 feet.

Adriana was taken to Brackenridge Hospital with internal head injuries and spent several hours Friday night in surgery. She was pronounced dead Saturday at 4:15 a.m.

Adriana's parents said they hope the accident will make drivers think before they pass a stopped school bus.

"We would like to tell everyone to be careful about stopping for buses with their lights flashing," Adriana's mother, Theresa Gutierrez, said through a translator. "We hope the police will be vigilant in enforcing this."

Theresa Gutierrez was across the street from the bus stop when her daughter was hit. Adriana's mother or stepfather would usually meet the girl at her bus stop in the 2100 block of Burton Drive.

Saturday, about 30 family members drove from Dallas to Austin to mourn Adriana, an Austin native who was popular with her cousins. They crowded into the apartment where the girl lived with her mother. Some stood outside watching their children play as they talked about the tragedy and comforted one another.

"She was so smart, so lively," Theresa Gutierrez said. "Everyone liked her."

Adriana loved to dance and would often spend her evenings jumping up and down to the rhythm of songs by her idol, Selena, the slain Tejano superstar. Adriana had all of Selena's songs memorized, family members said.

Brandy McClintock, who was working at a Jack in the Box restaurant and witnessed the accident, said motorists often ignore the school bus warning lights. "I've seen a lot of people come around that bus," she said Friday.

Austin Independent School District officials plan to change the bus route Monday to keep children from crossing traffic after getting off the bus, said Joe Perez, the district's transportation director.

In addition, all of the district's bus drivers will be asked to evaluate their routes next week and suggest ways to make them safer, Perez said.

"If they see some safer way to do it, they'll let us know, and we' ll change the route," Perez said.

Nationally, an average of 10 school-age pedestrians are killed by cars each year in school-bus-related accidents, according to a U.S. Department of Transportation Web site. About 40 percent of those deaths occur between 3 and 4 p.m., the Web site said.

"It's a horrible, horrible tragedy. We do our best to try to make sure these accidents are being prevented," said A.C. Gonzalez, Austin' s interim school superintendent. "We're trying to reach out and provide some degree of comfort for the family in a very tragic situation."

Austin school officials said they were working with the family to set up a fund to help pay for Adriana's funeral. Social workers will be available to provide support to the family, officials said. On Monday, social workers will be at Linder to help students cope with the tragedy.

Funeral information was pending late Saturday at All Faith's Funeral Service.