[Newsbot]

Title: ETS bus driver attacked
Category: Law & Order
Posted By: Alta_redneck
Date: 2009-12-03 13:13:45
Canadian

[gigs]

7:30 in the morning. Rush Hour! WTF .

I guess he thinks transit is free and drivers should not ask passengers to pay .


EDMONTON — A bus driver is in hospital after an irate passenger allegedly assaulted him during the morning commute.

A man who was on the Route 10 bus heading to Clareview said that around 7:30 a.m., the driver made a stop near the Winks on Victoria Trail near 139th Avenue.

After a passenger boarded the bus, another man started running alongside and banging on the door. The driver stopped to let the second man on, but he didn’t have fare.

“It looked like he was either drunk or on something,” the witness said.

“He started swearing because the bus driver told him that if he didn’t have fare he couldn’t get on.”

The man addressed the dozen or so people on the bus and asked if anyone had a dollar to round out his fare. A teenage boy sitting at the front of the bus gave him a loonie and the man paid his full fare.

The witness said the bus driver started to drive again, but the new passenger, a short stocky man in his 20s, remained irate and stood at the front of the bus, swearing and yelling.

The driver pulled over again and asked the man to leave because of his behaviour.

“They were arguing for a full few minutes there. It looked like he was ready to start fighting,” the witness said.

Then, suddenly, the man took a swing at the driver. The witness, who was sitting at the front of the bus behind the driver’s seat, said the driver did nothing to physically provoke the man, nor did he even appear to defend himself, save for possibly shielding himself with his arms.

In what seemed like seconds, the man had dragged the driver out the open doors to the ground immediately below and continued to beat him there, while the horrified passengers watched, screaming.

“He began to stomp on his face over and over and over again. It was pretty bad,” the man said.

The assault happened so quickly that none of the passengers had a chance to intercede, the witness said, and everyone was frightened of the man, considering no one knew whether he may have weapons.

When the assailant ran off, the witness got off the bus, along with two female passengers wearing scrubs, and tried to help the driver. Several other passengers had already called 9-1-1.

“It was just horrible. His whole face was covered in blood; it looked like his nose was stomped into his face.”

The man was conscious momentarily, but had passed out by the time an ambulance arrived.

Edmonton Transit director of safety and security Ron Gabruck said that the driver was undergoing surgery in hospital Thursday morning and his family was with him.

Gabruck said the bus was equipped with five cameras that were recording and that all footage will be handed over to police. He stressed that this was a rare, random incident.

“There’s no way that we can predict this,” he said, noting that the route the assault happened on is not a busy or particularly dangerous one.

The bus was equipped with a panic button that drivers can hit to cause the cameras to slow down and record higher-quality images and that changes the bus’s front display to instruct passersby to call police. Gabruck said he did not know if the button was pushed in this morning’s incident.

He also said drivers are trained to deal with irate passengers by using verbal techniques.

The man who was attacked has worked for Edmonton Transit for 33 years, making him one of the system’s most senior drivers, said Coun. Amarjeet Sohi, a former transit operator.

“He understands the system. He must have dealt with so many other situations, not like this, but conflict on the job. I’m personally saddened.”

ETS is taking steps to protect staff by hiring six extra security officers this year, testing protective shields, putting multiple closed-circuit cameras on new vehicles and training operators in ways to mitigate potential problems, he said.

But danger is always on a driver’s mind, he said,

“You’re always watching what you’re doing, who is getting on your bus,” said Sohi, describing the incident as “brutal.”

“When you look at the causes of attacks on bus operators, you’re looking at people with difficulties, people with addictions issues, mental health issues, or people who don’t want to pay the fare.”

Police spokeswoman Karen Carlson said police have arrested a 24-year-old suspect and he is facing various charges.

With files from Gordon Kent

[email protected]

[2Cdo]

This doesn't surprise me. Years of having politicians strip away the right to defend yourself or others. Years of politicians telling us to not fight back lest we face criminal charges. Years of soft on crime politicians placing criminals rights ahead of victims rights have left us with people who would sit and watch a man get beaten by some dirtbag rather than helping him and potentially facing criminal charges.

[EyeBrock]

The sheep watching a wolf do his worst and baaing away.

I wonder how many of those guys on the threads attacking cops would have done anything?

They usually just wait for the sheepdogs to turn up.

http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html

[Brenda]

According to the story, they were all sorta frozen, and it happened pretty quick...
Can hardly blame the passengers for this.

I feel sorry for the driver, I hope he has a speedy recovery, physically as well as mentally.

[gigs]

So much for security cameras, they provide no security for drivers.

[EyeBrock]

Brenda Brenda:

According to the story, they were all sorta frozen, and it happened pretty quick...
Can hardly blame the passengers for this.

I feel sorry for the driver, I hope he has a speedy recovery, physically as well as mentally.

Sheep freeze when attacked. Read the link Brenda.

I can safely say that any off duty cop or soldier wouldn't have froze. That's what we do, take on the bad guys.

[Unf]

Bus drivers suck alright. I wonder why the bus driver didn't use lethal force to defend himself? Or why all the law abiding Edmontonian gun slingers didn't leap to the front of the bus brandishing away like mad? I wonder how many passengers thought the driver was getting his comeuppance for driving away on the guy running for the bus? Life's grand prade I guess.

[EyeBrock]

Yea, make a guy run for a bus deserves a real good beating and some loser stomping on his head.
Says the sheep from the back of the bus.

[gigs]

Unf Unf:

Bus drivers suck alright. I wonder why the bus driver didn't use lethal force to defend himself? Or why all the law abiding Edmontonian gun slingers didn't leap to the front of the bus brandishing away like mad? I wonder how many passengers thought the driver was getting his comeuppance for driving away on the guy running for the bus? Life's grand prade I guess.

Whats the matter did you get kicked off a bus once for not paying a fare?

[Brenda]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

Brenda Brenda:

According to the story, they were all sorta frozen, and it happened pretty quick...
Can hardly blame the passengers for this.

I feel sorry for the driver, I hope he has a speedy recovery, physically as well as mentally.

Sheep freeze when attacked. Read the link Brenda.

I can safely say that any off duty cop or soldier wouldn't have froze. That's what we do, take on the bad guys.

Not everyone is a cop or a soldier, geesh.
I would have frozen too. Of course I read the link, wtf??

You can insult whatever you want, fact is tht people do not expect shit like this when they take transit to work. A cop or soldier does, he is trained to do so. I am not. I am trained to do other things.

[EyeBrock]

It's not an insult Brenda, where in what I posted is an insult?

People say that police should be held to a higher standard.

How about expecting people to be held up to a higher standard?

How about expecting people to step in and sort a bully out?

A bus full of 'average' people stand and watch? 40 people don't need to be 'trained', they just need to stop watching and take some action.

Then the same 'average' people can only criticise police when they find an opportunity? Come on.

[Brenda]

Who is criticizing police? Would you stop taking EVERY thread personally? Holy...

[DrCaleb]

gigs gigs:

Unf Unf:

Bus drivers suck alright. I wonder why the bus driver didn't use lethal force to defend himself? Or why all the law abiding Edmontonian gun slingers didn't leap to the front of the bus brandishing away like mad? I wonder how many passengers thought the driver was getting his comeuppance for driving away on the guy running for the bus? Life's grand prade I guess.

Whats the matter did you get kicked off a bus once for not paying a fare?

The short bus doesn't have fares.

[EyeBrock]

Brenda Brenda:

Who is criticizing police? Would you stop taking EVERY thread personally? Holy...

Several people have on various threads all day. I just find it timely that a thread like this has been posted.

People are quite happy to slag us off because of a few tossers but are ready to forgive a bus load of people who do NOTHING as a man is beaten by one person in front of them.

Baaaa