Fight with DDOT bus driver pulling passenger's hair caught on video
DETROIT (WJBK) - The bus was put in park but that was when things really got moving.
The Detroit Department of Transportation is investigating video of a physical altercation between one of its drivers and a passenger. The incident took place at Seven Mile near the Lodge freeway and depending on what DDOT finds, the driver could be suspended or fired.
The bus fight was caught on a passenger's phone camera as the driver was seen grabbing pulling a passenger's hair
"She pulled out clumps of my hair first," said a woman who said she was attacked in the video. "She pushed both her dirty nails into my eyeballs, my face was swollen, I'm just now starting to get it down."
She did not want to be identified. The woman claims the trouble started when she and other passengers asked the driver to pull forward at their stop because they would not be able to get out of the bus's back entrance.
The driver refused.
"The bus driver had an attitude anyway," said witness Keyana Broadnax. "She cussed her out calling her a (expletive), 'Get off my bus' and stuff like that."
"As I'm coming up, I get hit and I'm like, OK, that's out of nowhere," said the woman who was attacked. "So I started hitting her with her phone."
The fight spilled outside -the driver at one point pulls something from her pocket.
"Now you see that she's got something in her hand - that was a knife," said Broadnax, was on the bus and recorded the video.
"The passenger, another passenger said the lady threw something at her but I did not see that," Broadnax said. "All I saw was the bus driver, getting out of her seat and grabbing the woman and they were outside fighting."
This DDOT dustup is the latest in a string of violent encounters between passengers and drivers in recent years. And in this case it could spell trouble for the woman behind the wheel.
DDOT released a statement:
"Under no circumstances should any of our drivers get physical with a passenger or a member of the public. If an incident occurs it is procedure that the driver who is experiencing the disturbance contact dispatch and wait for the transit police to arrive to get control of the situation.
"We have installed surveillance cameras on all of our coaches and have a designated transit police force to make sure that any incident that occurs can be responded to immediately. We will be conducting a full investigation including the review of this video and any footage that may have been captured by the onboard cameras."