A West Vancouver woman is raising concerns about security for transit passengers and drivers, after she says she was brutally assaulted following a bus ride home on the weekend.
“It’s totally shocking. The experience here is that it’s not about me, it’s about everybody living in Vancouver,” Karin Ericson told Global News.
“This is a story about the acceptance, almost, of violence we are seeing.”
Ericson said the incident happened as she was heading home from watching the Celebration of Lights at a friend’s house in Vancouver’s West End on Saturday.
After the fireworks, she boarded a Blue Bus headed for the North Shore, when a group of youths tried to board and got into an altercation with the driver who didn’t want to let one young woman get on.
“It became a big scene, she was verbally abusive, in both tone and language. She was very high-pitched, yelling profanities at the bus driver, threatening him, harassing him, threatening his job if he didn’t let her stay on the bus,” Ericson said.
Ericson said she pulled out her phone and began recording, out of concern the situation could escalate.
The driver eventually called for security, who attended the scene and mediated the dispute. The bus eventually continued on its route with one of the security personnel aboard, she said.
“At that point, one of the friends started verbally attacking me, angry I was videoing, and told me I had no f-ing right to do that, I should have asked for permission, that it was illegal, just in a very intimidating manner,” she said.
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The bus proceeded to the North Shore without incident, but Ericson said she felt intimidated by the group.
Ericson got off the bus at the Park Royal bus loop, and was walking away when she was suddenly attacked.
“(I) took 10 to 15 steps and was completely blindsided, I’m not really sure exactly what happened, just that I was hit over the back, the head, and thrown on the ground face first,” she said.
“I ran screaming, blood coming out of my nose, totally banged up, ran screaming to security there.”
Ericson said said security was able to detain two of the girls from the group on the bus who she saw running away after the attack.
West Vancouver police confirmed that they had arrested a 22-year-old woman and were recommending assault charges.
Ericson said the attack left her with a concussion and a broken nose, along with significant bruising and swelling.
She said it was a sign of growing violence in the city, violence she feared would prevent other people from stepping in when they see something bad happening.
“I was targeted because of involvement, and I think it brings the question of are people going to continue to put themselves out, put themselves at risk, knowing that we’re seeing a lot of consequences for doing that,” she said.
She added that she was concerned for the safety of transit workers, after the driver in her case was directed to keep going with the disruptive passengers on board.
“The bus driver was undermined in his desire, and was very upset when he drove off because he did not want those people on the bus,” she said.
The union representing West Vancouver Blue Bus drivers said the incident was handled appropriately.
It said a transit coordinator deployed security to the bus in order to ensure a “prompt resolution” to the initial dispute, and that once the disruptive passengers got off in West Vancouver, that a supervisor boarded to check on the driver’s well-being.
“One area of concern for us, as a union, is the lack of communication from our employer regarding this incident,” ATU Local 134 president Cornel Neagu said in an email.
“Regrettably, the details of the event were not relayed to us directly but rather, we learned about it through various media sources.”
Transit safety became a hot-button issue earlier this spring, following a string of violent incidents throughout the Metro Vancouver transit system.
Statistics, however, showed that there were actually fewer crimes committed on the transit system in 2022 than in 2021, with violent crime numbers also holding steady year to year.
It is a similar story when it comes to assaults on transit operators. In 2022 there were 65, compared to 67 the year before.
Metro Vancouver Transit Police has said that while there was a per-capita drop in crimes reported per 100,000 transit passengers between the two years, passenger boardings were up by 45 per cent in the same period.