The tour bus driver who fatally struck an Alaskan mayor and her mother near the National Mall last year pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of negligent homicide.
Video from inside the bus shows the driver, 46-year-old Gerard D. James of Baltimore, picking up his ringing cellphone with his left hand and transferring it to his right hand as he struck 61-year-old Monica Carlson and her 85-year-old mother, Cora Adams, just before 10 p.m. Dec. 19, prosecutors said.
Carlson and Adams were walking on 7th Street and crossing Pennsylvania Avenue in the crosswalk, while James was turning left from 7th Street onto Pennsylvania Avenue against a red left turn arrow, prosecutors said.
Both women were taken to the hospital, where they died of their injuries.
Carlson, the mayor of Skagway, Alaska, and her mother were in town to tour the White House Christmas decorations.
Carlson's mother was a resident of the lakeside town of Elbe, Washington.
James will be sentencing Nov. 15. The plea calls for four years in prison — two years for each count.
Police say the crash was similar to one in 2007 in which a Metrobus hit and killed two women in the same intersection. Metro settled a lawsuit with one of the victim's husbands for more than $2 million. The D.C. Department of Transportation added a left-turn lane and left-turn arrow to the intersection following the crash.
