Mourn Bus Operator Murdered by Rider After Transfer Beef

New York City Transit workers paid their last respects Dec. 8 at the Queens funeral of a Bus Operator who was stabbed to death last week by a fare-evading passenger, the first such incident since 1981.

The Chief-Leader/Michael O'Kane FAREWELL TO A 'MODEL EMPLOYEE': Transit workers line a Queens street to pay their final respects to Bus Operator Edwin Thomas as the hearse carrying his body drives by. Mr. Thomas, who was murdered by an irate passenger following a dispute over a transfer, was described as a 'model employee' by New York City Transit President Howard N. Roberts.

Edwin Thomas, a 46-year-old single father of a teenage son and daughter, was killed Dec. 1 after he declined to give a transfer to the attacker, who had boarded without paying the B46 bus in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. The next day, Police Department officials said they had arrested Horace D. Moore, who they claimed admitted his guilt. Mr. Moore had previously been convicted on assault and weapons possession charges, among others.

Cared About Passengers

The Chief-Leader/Michael O'Kane A SENSELESS MURDER, A FATHERLESS SON: Jeffrey Thomas, the son of slain New York City Transit Bus Operator Edwin Thomas, waited outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in the Cambria Heights section of Queens Dec. 8 as hundreds of Bus Operators marched in a procession before the driver's funeral.

 

 

 

 

Mr. Thomas, a Haitian immigrant, had worked for NYC Transit since 2001. During the funeral at the Sacred Heart Church in Cambria Heights, people spoke of a courteous and friendly worker who often kept his bus at a stop for a few extra moments to make sure passengers from a connecting bus route could board.

Transit officials described Mr. Thomas as an even-tempered and likeable employee who earned the nickname Mr. Cool among his co-workers at Flatbush Depot. NYC Transit President Howard H. Roberts drew applause from hundreds of transit workers when he called him a "model employee" and pledged to create a "more secure and safer environment for bus operators."

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director and CEO Elliot G. Sander noted that during his seven years with NYC Transit, Mr. Thomas had won four commendations for professionalism and safe operation.

Mr. Sander also presented Mr. Thomas's family with a plaque with his photo and badge. A replica will also be installed at Flatbush Depot, where he had been based.

Peaceful By Nature

One of Mr. Thomas's uncles indicated in his eulogy that he discovered his nephew's nonviolence when he tried to teach him martial arts. After one lesson, Edwin told him that he didn't like fighting, demonstrating an inherently peaceful nature, he said, that stayed with him until his death.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 Secretary-Treasurer Ed Watt, who spoke on behalf of President Roger Toussaint, noted that the last time a Bus Operator was murdered on the job in 1981, it took several years for the then-Transit Authority to honor the worker with a plaque. The gesture at the funeral from the MTA, he said, marked a sign of progress. He vowed to work with the administration to improve safety for bus workers.

Joining the NYC Transit workers were workers from New Jersey Transit and other MTA agencies as well as Amalgamated Transit Union members from Toronto.

Holding back tears, Stephan Thomas, the vice president for TA Surface for said, "This is not supposed to happen to Bus Operators."

Gun Hill Depot-based Bus Operator Michael Small was one of several hundred transit workers who attended Mr. Thomas's wake Dec. 7 at the Andrew Torregrossa and Sons Funeral Home next door to Flatbush Depot.

Threats Part of the Job

He said he was not shocked by Mr. Thomas's murder, explaining that as recently as last month he was threatened by someone whom he declined to give a transfer to after he failed to pay the fare. In that instance a passenger spit at and punched him. Before that, another rider threatened him with a knife.

"You got murderers, rapists — you don't know who's coming on that bus," Mr. Small said outside the funeral home, where Bus Operators marched down Flatbush Ave. behind a big piper playing "The Rising of the Moon."

Like many other Bus Operators, he hoped that the murder would prompt safety changes for drivers, either in terms of installing Plexiglass barriers or putting more transit police on buses. While many of the workers who came to the funeral and wake did not know Mr. Thomas, he said, there was a sense of kinship, because they had all faced threats, intimidation or violence over fares and transfers, and because Mr. Thomas's murder showed the public how exposed Bus Operators are. Where Train Operators, Conductors and Station Agents are protected by physical barriers, drivers are separated from irate riders by a single metal bar.

Union figures show that Bus Operators are the most-assaulted workers in the transit system. "Everybody has a story to tell," Mr. Small said, gesturing towards the crowd of Bus Operators. "You assault one, you assault every one of us."