KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Less than a week after the attack of a metro bus driver is caught on video, two people are charged with the beating and stabbing. And on Wednesday, a passenger, also on that bus, speaks up.
FOX 4 spoke with Charlie Hardin, a woman who was sitting in the back of the bus watching the attack happen in front of her.
She says the bus driver pulled over on this corner and, in a split-second, the three were on the ground. She says the entire bus was silent.
This graphic video showing the punching and stabbing of a Kansas City metro bus driver has already been viewed thousands of times. And with each viewing, one question gets brought up: what did the other bus passengers to do help the 52-year-old driver?
“I couldn’t believe it was happening,” Hardin told FOX 4. She said the attack was so quick, there was little time to react.
“He’s up here trying to get them off the bus and they are going to attack him like that? Two of them. And he’s one. That’s not fair,” she said.
Hardin said the two men stepped on the bus already worked up –and arguing ensued– “When I was looking down to try to call 911 and that’s when they went down.
Her first thought– to call police — but she says like the few other witnesses, the attack stunned her. “Over a couple dollars, it really doesn’t make sense at all,” she said.
Hardin says the bus was silent and no one wanted to make a move, explaining, “Cause you really don’t know what kind of weapon they got,”
Kansas City police say, in their own way, passengers did help. One caught the attack on a cellphone, while another’s call to 911 went through.
And from the back of the bus, Hardin says she didn’t know how bad the attack was.
“The bus driver grabbed his shirt so when he got back in his seat he was wiping off his face and stuff like that,” she said.
Once she saw blood where the driver had been stabbed, she says she ran off the bus. By then, the two were gone.
“It’s like oh, not this again. You know when you see this so many times, you get tired of seeing stuff like that,” she said.
“I hope he is recovering okay,” she said.
The two suspects caught on surveillance have been charged. Twenty-year old Lewis Perkins is being held on a $100,000 bond. The other, a 14-year old, made his first appearance in juvenile court on Tuesday.