Gang beats up Detroit bus driver; 100 drivers refuse to drive
In the mid 1960s, America decided that young women should be able to get on welfare almost automatically, and that marriage didn’t matter. Today, after several generations of fatherless children raised by fatherless children supported by the state, we have a population of inner city savages at loose in this country, and no one knows what to do about it.
DETROIT (WWJ)—People who catch the bus in Detroit may be waiting a while Friday morning. About 100 Detroit Department of Transportation bus drivers are at work, but are refusing to drive their buses.
WWJ’s Scott Ryan spoke with Henry Gaffney, spokesman for the D-DOT bus drivers union AFL-CIO Local 26, who said this was not an organized maneuver by the union. Gaffney said it’s a matter of bus drivers fearing for their safety, citing an incident that happened Thursday afternoon.
“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.
Speaking live on WWJ, Mayor Dave Bing spokesman Stephen Serkaian said they are working hard to resolve the matter and get drivers back on the road.
“We’re working diligently to work with the union and encouraging the drivers to get back on the buses and get on the street,” said Serkaian.
Gaffney said bus safety is an ongoing problem.
“If it’s to the point where if the driver is not safe on the bus, then the passengers are not safe, then the citizens are not safe. You know, what about them too? We have no security, you can’t get the police, nobody is doing anything to protect us. And I’ve been begging the mayor and the council for two years to do something to help us,” said Gaffney.
But, Serkaian said there are discussions in the city right now to improve bus safety.
“It is a concern. We want to protect drivers and passengers alike. We used to have police presence on the buses. We’re talking about the prospect of perhaps trailing buses with police cars. Nothing has been decided, it’s all in discussion right now,” said Serkaian. “It’s a short-term and a long-term matter … It’s all about money and it’s all about funding, and our transportation system is already stretched to the max.”
WWJ’s Vickie Thomas was at a deserted Rosa Parks Transit Center in downtown Detroit, which is typically booming with passengers and buses alike.
Saharah X. was waiting at the center for 30 minutes before flagging down a cab.
“They just try to find a way not to do their job. And then they got innocent old people, there an old lady on a cane sitting outside over there, that’s dangerous. And she got to walk? Wow. I mean, what is the world coming to? No love, no nothing. Everybody’s just thinking about themselves. Think about other people some,” she said.
Richard Moses, who rides the bus every day, was waiting a bus stop along Woodward Avenue when a D-DOT supervisor rolled up in an SUV and basically told him to find another form of transportation Friday morning.
“They said there’s no D-DOT buses running at this time and they don’t know when any will be starting back up. I just got off work, I work midnights. Luckily, I got dropped off right here or else I would have been sitting on 8 Mile and Woodward, and I’ve got to go all the way to Livernois and Warren,” said Moses.
Serkaian said they’re asking stranded riders who are waiting for the bus to get to school and work to hang on and be patient.
“We understand their frustration, we feel their pain. We simply have to ask folks to be a little bit more patient while we try to resolve this matter,” he said.
Detroit Public Schools has issued a letter to parents informing them of the situation, saying it doesn’t affect DPS yellow buses, which are running normally. They also said DPS Police Dept. personnel will provide additional watch near bus stops where children may be congregated.
A recording on the D-DOT customer service line said the department “sincerely apologizes for extreme delays in service.”
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Allan Wall writes:
In the story about the Detroit buses I note a cruel irony.
” … one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there … a deserted Rosa Parks Transit Center in downtown Detroit … “
So this street in Detroit is named after Rosa Parks, lionized for fighting for the right of blacks to be treated equally on buses, and now the bus drivers themselves can’t be protected from being beat up.
Paul K. writes:
Henry Gaffney, spokesman for the D-DOT bus drivers union, says, “[O]ne of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit.”
“Rosa Parks” refers to the Rosa Parks Transit Center, named for the civil rights icon who in 1955 refused to ride in the back of the bus in segregated Montgomery, Alabama, one of those indignities that is incessantly thrown in the face of whites to remind them of their irredeemable racism.
In 1957, Parks moved to Detroit, where she resided until her death in 2005.
What progress has been made! Black mayors now run the city of Detroit, and black bus riders are free to sit anywhere they please, only the buses aren’t running because black bus drivers are being beaten up by feral black youths.
Parks lived to see first hand the brutality of young black men: in 1994, at age 81, Parks was mugged and beaten by one of them.
Gintas writes:
I love this quote:
Saharah X. was waiting at the center for 30 minutes before flagging down a cab.
“They just try to find a way not to do their job. And then they got innocent old people, there an old lady on a cane sitting outside over there, that’s dangerous. And she got to walk? Wow. I mean, what is the world coming to? No love, no nothing. Everybody’s just thinking about themselves. Think about other people some,” she said.
How selfish of the bus drivers! Don’t they know everyone has the unalienable equal right to be beaten down by a gang on a bus?
Paul K. writes:
This story makes me once again contemplate the great quandary of racial equality. It is understandable that blacks resented being forced to sit in the back of the bus; it was a daily reminder of their status as second-class citizens. However, hard as it may be to justify under liberalism, it also represented the understanding that there must be some barriers between blacks and whites if whites hoped to continue to enjoy a civilized society. Today blacks are no longer confined to the back, but in many major cities everyone, black and white, rides in fear of black violence or at the very least, rude behavior and unwanted advances (as described by Beth M.). So we have “equality” for all at the cost of quality of life for the majority. Suppose whites were told they had to sit in the back of the bus, with the condition that blacks must stay up front—would whites not gladly take that deal? And would not blacks decry it as discriminatory? Why must concern for the amour propre of blacks outweigh concerns for the liberty and security of the rest of us? (As a long-time VFR reader, I of course know the answer to that.)
LA replies:
Well, here’s an immediate problem I see with your hypothetical proposal. The aim of the seating arrangement is to make whites safer from violent blacks. But why should whites be made safer from violent blacks, when non-violent blacks are not given the same protections? I suppose one could answer that whites tend to be singled out for attacks by blacks. But that might be parried by the argument that blacks are also attacked by blacks.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 04, 2011 12:24 PM | Send