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Seattle shooting ignites debate on bulletproof buses
The shooting of a King’s County, Wash., bus driver has revived a debate over using bulletproof glass on public transportation vehicles.
On Aug. 12, a gunman forced his way onto a King County Metro bus and shot the driver during Seattle’s morning rush hour, according to Associated Press. The shooter fled the scene, boarding another bus where he was shot by officers who fired through the windows. The gunman, Martin Duckworth, was transported to a hospital where he died.
The shooting began when 64-year-old bus driver Deloy Dupuis asked Duckworth, who boarded the bus through the rear entrance, to re-enter the bus at the front and pay the fare, according to local television station KOMO. Acting Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel told KOMO Duckworth paced back and forth before striking and then shooting the driver.
Dupuis survived the attack, according to KOMO.
“This is a rare situation on a metro bus, ” Assistant Police Chief Paul McDonagh told KOMO. The last shooting that took place on a Metro bus in Seattle occurred in 1998.
However, assaults in Seattle are on the rise, according to Metro Transit. Bus drivers reported 107 attacks in 2012, an increase from the 85 reported in 2010.
The recent shooting has reignited a discussion about protecting bus drivers, according to online news source My Northwest. “That’s a conversation we have from time to time,” King County Executive Dow Constantine told KIRO Radio. “It’s not a budgetary issue, but an issue of working with drivers for the setup that’s best for them.”
The Amalgamated Transit Union local in Seattle rejected calls for protective enclosures, although they have been installed in other cities, according to My Northwest.
“The problem is in order to do them well, they have to be done as the bus is engineered, not after market," Larry Hanley, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union told My Northwest, "They often make the drivers feel claustrophobic and cut down on ventilation and circulation of air, so they have not been universally well received."
Other transit agencies have had varying degrees of success with protective shields. ABC News reports Chicago, Dallas, Baltimore and New York all have experimented with such measures.
New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority has vowed to upgrade all 5,700 buses in its fleet with floor to celling partitions and security cameras, according to ABC. The agency reports a quarter of the fleet is already equipped, and it hopes to double that number by 2015.
Seattle tested shields on approximately 30 buses with 300 drivers in 2010. The Union board ultimately rejected continuing the program based on driver concerns over “glare, obstructions between the shield and the outside mirrors for driving the bus safely,” Paul Bachtel, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union local in Seattle told My Northwest. He said the partitions would cause “a change in the relationship between the operator and the passengers that we thought would cause more problems, not solve problems.”
Besides bus drivers, let us
Besides bus drivers, let us protect garbage truck drivers, cabbies, pizza delivery boys, tiller men on hook & ladder fire trucks, police, etc.,- the list is endless. Illinois just passed a law on background checks for guns & reporting lost or stolen weapons. In front of a church & bus stop on Chicago’s north side, someone with an automatic weapon killed one & shot 3 others. When are we just going to get rid of the guns & simplify all the above problems???
Hey lets ship the jobs
Hey lets ship the jobs overseas, legalize pot and handguns and see what happens…Duh!
I would like to understand
I would like to understand why it is that so many mentally unstable folks with violent tendencies are free to roam the streets and unleash their misperceived havoc on society?
Many of these feel their medications are ‘poisoning’ them and so they stop taking them. We release them from treatment centers with prescriptions and supplies of meds, kiss them on the forehead and expect them to follow through on their own treatment plan virtually unsupervised. Many have enough grasp of a form of reality that would lead them to the obtaining of weapons outside the legal channels. After that the situations begin. Many times all it takes for these to go over the edge is for a traffic light to hold too long, a frown on the face of a passerby or a smile, the sun to be too high in the sky, or any number of misinterpreted daily routine events. When these folks aren’t taking their meds such daily routine events become stressors and triggers. Meanwhile, the old mental institutions are sitting empty and decayed. There were reasons in the past to keep individuals with major mental issues away from the general public but we have somehow become more ‘enlightened’ and find stories of such wanton violence surprising.
1. The “entertainment” we
1. The “entertainment” we regularly consume can’t possibly help.
2. How many times can we say “guns don’t kill people…” before the logic sinks in. Does anyone really think we can round up all guns? Even if we could, good grief, practically every physical object in the universe can be used as a deadly weapon.
3. How about we all just have bullet-proof clothing covering every inch of our bodies?
4. Actually punish people who shoot people. Apparently whatever we’re doing isn’t much of a deterrent.
problem anywhere at Bus Stop
problem anywhere at Bus Stop who rider customer who are drug and drinking problem before step in bus. While they using smoke pot and drinking at every area for most percent is Big City. Small City some area had been trash all over ground without trash bin near to store and liquor store. Need to solves litter bug any where in Twin Cities and other City area. Also need to have all design shelter with heat and door closed from below and and bathroom ( many of some people pee anywhere ). Need brainstorm for shelter, trash, bathroom area.