An impromptu memorial to a child who died Monday after being hit by a school bus is pictured outside Fletcher Elementary School. P-J file photo

An insurance company is requesting the Jamestown Public Schools District turn over video that may have captured the death of a 4-year-old Jamestown girl in November.

The Progressive Casualty Insurance Company has filed a pre-action discovery motion in state Supreme Court in Mayville seeking the video from the school district. The insurance company filed the motion in court on Monday. Leanna Herrera, a 4-year-old, was killed after she was struck by a Panama Central School bus making an out-of-district drop-off Nov. 17 outside Fletcher Elementary School.

Progressive insured a vehicle that was facing south on Whitehill and Cole avenues at the time of the accident, with the driver named in an insurance claim for damages brought by the girl’s family because the driver was mentioned in the police report. The vehicle was not involved in the accident, but the bus driver told police he was distracted by the vehicle just prior to the accident. The police report states the unnamed woman’s vehicle was “slowly moving into the intersection as if it was attempting to see and look for traffic.” The bus driver, according to the police report, said he was looking at the vehicle to make sure it did not come out into the intersection in front of him when the girl ran across Cole Avenue from the other direction.

“The petitioner has been advised that the incident was caught on a video camera maintained by the respondents Jamestown City School District/Milton J. Fletcher Elementary School located at 301 Cole Ave., Jamestown, N.Y.,” states the request by Kevin Graff, a Williamsville-based attorney from the Law Offices of Jennifer S. Adams.

“The estate of infant L.H. has brought a claim for damages for this incident including a claim against (the unnamed driver’s) insurance carrier, the petitioner, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company. “The video of this incident is clearly material and necessary to the petitioner’s investigation of this incident, and they would be severely prejudiced if the video was not maintained and produced to them by respondents.”

The Panama school bus was in the midst of dropping off a Panama student for an out-of-district placement at the time of the accident. The area around the school was closed for several hours while Jamestown police and the New York State Police investigated the accident.

Graff is asking the court to schedule a hearing in state Supreme Court to hear arguments why the video should not be preserved and turned over to the insurance company.

“Should this video be destroyed the petitioner’s ability to investigate this incident and properly defend their insured would be materially harmed,” Graff wrote.

So far, the insurance claim is the only known claim related to November’s accident.