A New Jersey school bus aide has been convicted of child endangerment nearly six months after being arrested for the death of a 6-year-old child with special needs who suffocated while in her care. Amanda Davila was arrested last July and charged with aggravated and reckless manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child following the death of Fajr Williams. Fajr Williams (left) died after suffocating on a bus and her school monitor, Amanda Davila (right), didn’t notice her choking. (Left photo: YouTube/CBS New York, right photo: Somserset County Prosecutor’s Office) On July 17, 2023, Davila, who was assigned as an aide on a bus headed to an extended school year program just outside New York City, secured the nonverbal wheelchair-bound 6-year-old into a seat after she boarded. During the ride, the bus hit several bumps in the road causing Williams to slip from her seat. Her neck caught onto the four-point harness of her seat, which wound up strangling the child. Fajr’s parents said their daughter was in that life-threatening position for nearly 40 minutes. Surveillance video showed the moments Williams slipped in her seat while Davila, who was seated toward the front of the bus, was wearing earbuds while looking at her phone. Neither Davila nor the other children on the bus who were all seated in front of the 6-year-old saw the child struggling. “I was scrolling through apps to go onto Instagram and texting,” Davila testified. After the bus arrived at Claremont Elementary School, Davila helped two other kids off the bus before unstrapping Williams who was motionless and unresponsive. The aide called faculty members to help her and a school nurse performed CPR. Once first responders were called to the school, they rushed the little girl to a local hospital where she died. A jury found Davila guilty of child endangerment but cleared her of the manslaughter charges she faced. The 27-year-old’s defense attorneys argued that Fajr’s older sister improperly buckled the 6-year-old into her seat on the bus that day, which also contributed to the child’s death. “It’s the parent’s responsibility to buckle the top and bottom parts. The parents, I guess she delegated to her 14-year-old daughter that day, did put the top part. She didn’t put the bottom, and that’s why the little girl slipped. If that bottom harness was fastened, it wouldn’t have happened,” defense attorney Michael Policastro said. Davila told jurors that she erred in her job responsibilities that day and did a poor job following training procedures, but echoed her attorneys’ position that she is not the only one to blame for the tragedy that happened that day. “I feel bad for what happened, and I am so sorry that it did happen and I made a mistake,” Davila told the court. “You guys are trying to put me in jail for 10-20 years on a mistake. I’m partially to blame but there’s other people to blame too, not just me.” Prosecutors said there’s no evidence to prove the family was at fault. Fajr’s mother argued that had Davila not been distracted, the child might still be alive today. “It was her fault for not doing her job,” Najmah Nash said to reporters after the jury’s decision. “We did our job. We got my baby to the bus. She was strapped in, and that’s a fact. So, any description, or any disbelief in that, is shame on you.” People who saw the news online believe that much of the blame for Williams’ death falls on Davila. “Yes the family strapped the child into the chair incorrectly that day. But if the bus aide was watching she would have seen her slip in the chair,” one Facebook commenter wrote. “The negligence was her not watching the child caused her death, not the strap.” “Her one job, the reason she was getting paid, was to pay attention to the special needs kids, the most vulnerable among us, on the bus,” another person stated. “She neglected to do her job because her phone was more important. I hope she gets some serious jail time.” Nash says she will continue advocating for lawmakers to pass a law in her daughter’s aide to give more training to bus monitors. “I still don’t have my child. She’s gone forever,” Nash tearfully told reporters. “I don’t think it was fair. Do I think that the prosecution did a good job? Yes.” Davila faces a maximum penalty of 10 years behind bars for the child endangerment conviction. Had she been convicted of manslaughter, she could have faced 10 to 20 years more. She’ll be sentenced on March 7. ‘Trying to Put Me In Jail for 10-20’: School Bus Aide Who Was Wearing Earbuds While on her Phone As 6-Year-Old Special Needs Girl In Her Care Strangled to Death Tries to Blame Child’s Parents