KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A young man has admitted in court that he helped attack a KCATA bus driver last July. Lewis Perkins, 20, appeared in Jackson County Circuit Court on Tuesday to plead guilty to a second-degree assault charge. He will face up to seven years in prison when a judge sentences him in April.
Police say Perkins and a 14-year-old boy beat and stabbed the driver at 31st and Cleveland. The driver had asked them to exit the bus because they hadn’t paid their fares. They proceeded to get into a loud and profane argument with the driver. Surveillance video captured the ensuing attack on the driver. In our previous reporting it was discovered that the driver would recover.
FOX 4 also learned that Perkins’ father was an ATA bus driver. When FOX 4 spoke with him after the assault, he was enraged at his son’s actions and felt badly for his colleague.
“I just got really mad. Why mess with a bus driver? I don’t understand what was on his mind,” Lewis Perkins Sr., a 12-year ATA veteran told FOX 4. “I didn’t know what to say. You know, disappointed, hurt and everything. That’s bad and it’s bad on me because I didn’t think he’d do nothing like that.”
The younger Perkins turned himself in after his mother had seen a report of the assault on the news according to a probable cause statement. He was originally held in detention on a $100,000 bond that was later reduced to $10,000 on the condition of house arrest and he was forbade from contact with the bus system or the driver. His formal sentencing is set for April 16 according to online court records.