WASHINGTON — A Metro rider upset about missing a bus took a train several stops to catch up with the bus driver and punched her in the face last week, the bus operator’s union said.
Metro Transit Police responded to the reported assault at the Huntington Metro station just before midnight April 25, Metro spokeswoman Sherri Ly said in an email.
The bus driver’s tooth was knocked out when the man punched her as she sat on the bus that had just completed a trip to the Huntington station, said Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 spokesman David Stephen.
According to Stephen, the man had just missed the 10A bus at the Braddock Road Metro, and expressed his displeasure after the driver pulled away from the stop.
When the bus arrived at Huntington about 20 minutes later, Stephen said, the man was there. He apparently took one of the last Yellow Line trains of the night to meet the bus, confronted another rider, then punched the driver in the face, Stephen said.
After hitting the driver, Metro’s Ly said, the man ran away.
“The investigation is ongoing to identify and locate the suspect,” Ly said.
Photos of a suspect have been distributed internally that show a man in a hoodie wearing a camouflage backpack at the front of a bus. That Metro Transit Police message describes the case as an investigation into a malicious wounding, which is a felony carrying a penalty of five to 20 years in prison.
Metro and the union have been calling for tougher penalties for assaults on workers.
