SANTA BARBARA — A Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District bus driver has been charged with vehicular manslaughter in a 2019 crash that killed a pedestrian.
According to a Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office news release, prosecutors filed the case against 61-year-old Aura Leticia Mijangos as a misdemeanor
On Oct. 9, 2019, Ms. Mijangos was driving an MTD bus when the bus jumped the curb and crashed into a bus stop near the corner of Chapala and West Figueroa streets.
One woman was killed and another was severely injured while they were waiting at the bus stop. Several passengers also suffered injuries.
“The difference between this offense and the charge of gross vehicular manslaughter, a felony, is the degree of negligence,” the press release read.
“Ordinary negligence is the failure to use reasonable care to prevent reasonably foreseeable harm to oneself or someone else.”
