Transit police are investigating after a video was posted to social media that showed a TransLink bus driver angrily kick a passenger off the bus after she allegedly made contact with him.
The happened around 4:30 p.m. on the No. 100 bus, which was travelling eastbound on Marine Drive at Knight Street, according to the passenger who shot the video.
The video begins after the alleged contact happened, and started with the bus driver pointing at a female passenger and yelling.
“Get the hell off my bus! Get off my bus right now or I’m calling the cops. You don’t make contact with someone when they’re driving a bus full of people,” he said.
The woman could be heard yelling something back, but it wasn’t clear what she was saying.
TransLink said in a statement that the woman hit the driver on the arm. A spokesperson said the woman became angry after the driver missed her requested stop.
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The passenger who shot the video, who asked not to be named, said the woman started yelling as soon as the driver passed by the stop.
“I went up to the bus driver and as he was approaching the next bus stop the apparent assault occurred,” he said.
“I didn’t see her hit him because she was standing between me and the driver but as soon as she apparently assaulted him he stopped the bus suddenly and that is when I started recording.”
Transit police said they were opening a file on the case.
In a statement, spokesperson Anne Drennan said it is never appropriate to touch a bus operator, and that the safety of passengers and employees is the top priority.
“Any distraction, including assault at any level, puts the operator and his or her passengers at risk,” reads the statement.
“The bus operator in this clip was justified in ordering the woman who slapped his arm to get off the bus and in explaining to her why he was doing so.”
Drennan added that assaults on bus drivers had declined slightly over the last several years, from 102 in 2015 to 97 in 2017.
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