2 teens charged with assaulting MBTA bus driver

2 teens charged with assaulting MBTA bus driver

By O’Ryan Johnson and Richard Weir  |   Thursday, April 14, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

Two teens were arrested last night on charges of assaulting an MBTA bus driver Monday afternoon, in an incident that ended with a bizarre crash that injured five and trapped one suspect’s foot under a bus tire, Transit Police said.

Felix Garcia, 18, and Michael Baptista, 19, both of Roxbury, face charges of interfering with a bus driver and assault and battery on a public employee. Baptista also is charged with threats to commit a crime. The interference charge is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Police said it all started when the driver told a smoker on the bus to snuff it. Witnesses told police as many as five people attacked the driver, who lost control of the bus. It hopped a curb, knocked down a crosswalk signal and slammed into a barber shop.

Police said Garcia was the teen who was pinned by the bus for about 40 minutes, and loudly thanked the crowd and rescuers as he was wheeled away by Boston EMS on a gurney. Boston firefighters used a powerful jack to lift the bus off his foot. A total of five people were injured, including a 9-year-old girl whose head slammed into a bus fixture during the crash.

MBTA Deputy Superintendent Joseph O’Connor said police do not believe the driver purposefully hit Garcia with the bus.

“We don’t believe there was any intent to pin or assault Mr. Garcia,” O’Connor said. “We believe this was all part of his exiting which caused him to get pinned.”

Deputy Transit Police Chief Lewis Best said, “They punched (the driver) repeatedly and pushed his face into the window. He was briefly knocked unconscious. The bus was in gear and his foot came off the brake as these two individuals tried to run off the bus.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1330664

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YouTube video eyed for clues in bus attack: VIDEO HERE

YouTube video eyed for clues in bus attack

By Richard Weir and Laura Crimaldi  |   Wednesday, April 13, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

T Police are analyzing a YouTube video of the chaotic aftermath of Monday’s MBTA bus crash as they continue their criminal probe into the gang attack on a bus driver who was pummeled after asking a group of young male passengers to stop smoking.

“We’re certainly taking a good, hard look at that video and others,” said a police source with knowledge of the investigation, who described one of the men seen in the clip “as a person of interest.”

Police said yesterday they had made no arrests in the assault on the 39-year-old driver, who lost control of his bus, which jumped a curb, knocked down a crosswalk pole, rammed a vacant barbershop and pinned the foot of a man whom cops suspect was with the group that attacked the driver. It took firefighters with a hydraulic jack 40 minutes to free the teen, who was cheered by onlookers as he left on a stretcher.

“We have a very active investigation. We’re interviewing all witnesses. It was a crowded bus,” said Transit Deputy Police Chief Lewis Best.

The bus driver called for police help just before he was jumped, according to radio calls released yesterday.

“I got a situation I need to deal with right away . . . I got a couple of unruly passengers. I got a couple of kids smoking cigarettes. I’m at Dudley Street and Hammond Street. Please get ‘em down here right away,” the unidentified driver told a Bus Operations Control Center operator.

Moments later, he told the operator: “I was just assaulted. Got knocked out. Got my head smashed into the window. I’m still at the same location. There’s a kid with his foot underneath the bus. About 10 of these kids jumped me.”

A passenger who called 911 said, “He’s being assaulted by a bunch of teenagers on the bus. . . . They were hitting them. I left the bus because they were smoking. I have asthma.” After the 911 operator told the woman police were en route, she said, “Oh my God. It was unbelievable.”

Monday’s attack comes among a rise in assaults on T bus and subway operators, with 66 total assaults reported in 2010, including 31 against bus drivers, compared with 58 overall assaults in 2009, including 29 against bus drivers. And assaults this year are on pace to exceed last year’s, with 20 reported so far, 10 of which involved bus drivers.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1330308

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Past haunts alleged drug-dealing driver Records reveal run-in with law

Past haunts alleged drug-dealing driver
Records reveal run-in with law

By Richard Weir  |   Saturday, April 9, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

The head of the MBTA is launching a “full investigation” into the background of an accused drug-dealing bus driver after court records revealed she was charged several years ago with impersonating a police officer, negligent driving and refusing to produce her license — all while she was employed by the T.

Cynthia D. King, 46, of Brockton was released on $1,000 bail yesterday after being arraigned on charges of possessing crack cocaine and heroin with intent to distribute after her arrest Thursday by Boston police. According to prosecutors, police launched their investigation after an informant tipped them off that she was “selling crack cocaine from an MBTA bus.”

“The general manager wants answers from any and all T departments that were involved,” said MBTA boss Richard Davey’s spokesman Joe Pesaturo. “He has directed the Human Resources Department to conduct a full investigation into the suspended employee’s record and work history.”

King’s prior legal woes began in 2007, when an off-duty Brockton cop repeatedly asked her to move her car after she parked it in a crosswalk near a detail, a police report states.

“She then told me she was a police officer in Boston and that I should know how to act in a uniform,” wrote Detective Michael Damiano, noting King refused to show her license or badge and “snickered” at him.

“It was a misunderstanding,” her lawyer, Michael Doolin, said yesterday of the case. She was acquitted in November 2008.

“The MBTA was not made aware of the 2007 allegations,” T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.

But after learning from the Herald that Damiano had contacted MBTA police in 2007 to see if King was a cop with them, and even forwarded his report to sergeant in charge of internal employee security for the T, Pesaturo said Davey was launching a probe into King’s past.

Cops arrested King as she arrived for work Thursday and found a plastic bag full of cocaine and three others with crack cocaine, along with $2,636 cash, in her pants pockets, according to a police report.

“I needed the extra money,” she allegedly told the cops who arrested her. “I don’t make enough money.” King’s salary is $62,774.

The officers, the report said, also found in her 2001 Lexus two scales, a tinfoil packet with apparent heroin and a “special” Boston police badge, apparently from when she was a security guard 12 years ago.

Doolin said his client maintains her innocence. “Cynthia King is a real good member of the community,” he said. “She has a wonderful family that supports her very much and she has been a good employee of the T. She looks forward to defending herself in court.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1329436

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MBTA driver arrested on drug-dealing charges

MBTA driver arrested on drug-dealing charges

By Richard Weir  |   Friday, April 8, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

A Boston bus driver was behind bars last night for allegedly dealing drugs after cops searched her personal car yesterday and found crack cocaine, police said.

Cynthia King, 46, of Brockton, who has worked for the MBTA since October 2002, was charged with possession and intent to distribute a Class B substance, according to Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll.

Drug control officers arrested King as she arrived for work at the Cabot bus yard in South Boston around 3:40 p.m. and conducted search warrants of her and her car, said Driscoll, noting that King was under prior surveillance.

“King was searched, and officers recovered crack cocaine and an undisclosed amount of U.S. currency,” she said.

The driver has been suspended, the MBTA said.

“The MBTA is very concerned about this,” T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said after King’s arrest.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1329221

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Somerville man nabbed in T attack on teens

Somerville man nabbed in T attack on teens

Joseph Balistreri
By O’Ryan Johnson  |   Sunday, December 5, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

Transit Police arrested a 36-year-old Somerville man yesterday who they say attacked two teens on an Orange Line train, kicking them and unleashing a tirade of racial slurs, police said.

Joseph Balistreri is charged with two counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, two counts of assault and battery, threats to commit a crime, and annoying and accosting behavior for the Nov. 19 run-in.

The victims, 18 and 19 years old, told police they were on the train at Sullivan Square headed to Ruggles Station when a heavyset man in a black leather jacket started yelling slurs at them, according to the police report.

The man then allegedly approached and started kicking the girls, hitting one in the lip and another in the chest. The teens told police he spit on them before he fled the train about 11 p.m.

Cops caught the suspect on camera and released his picture Friday, leading to tips that resulted in the arrest yesterday, police said. Balistreri is being held on $7,500 bail and is expected to be arraigned tomorrow.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1300911

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Cops seek thug in MBTA attack on teen women

Cops seek thug in MBTA attack on teen women

ON TAPE: Cameras 
captured images of the suspect in an MBTA attack.
By Richard Weir  |   Saturday, December 4, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

Transit police are on the prowl for a brawny thug who assaulted two teenage women aboard an Orange Line train, spewing “homophobic and racial slurs” at them before delivering several violent kicks and spitting in their faces, according to cops.

The “bizarre” attack took place Nov. 19 at 10:55 p.m. as the women rode an Orange Line train between Malden and Sullivan Square, said Sgt. Detective Michael Adamson.

“They were sitting there minding their own business. We don’t know what his motivation was,” Adamson said.

For an unknown reason, the stocky, 6-foot-tall assailant approached the 18- and 19-year-old women, calling them lesbians and using a racial slur aimed at the younger woman, who is black, according to a police report.

He then “kicked one of them in the face, cutting her lip, and delivered a blow to the other’s chest,” Adamson said.

The suspect exited the train at Sullivan Square and fled, but was caught on surveillance camera. The women got off at Ruggles Station, where they notified cops but declined medical aid.

Adamson said it was unclear why the man targeted the women, saying “there was nothing whatsoever to lead the suspect to know” their sexualities.

Police asked for the public’s help in identifying the attacker, described as a white man in his 20s, wearing a black and gray Kangol hat, black leather jacket, jeans, white sneakers and a green T-shirt with white lettering.

Adamson added that investigators are working with prosecutors to determine whether the alleged attack rises to the level of a hate crime.

Anyone with information is asked to call the transit police at 617-222-1212.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1300717

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Police: T driver attacked after rebuking woman changing clothes

Police: T driver attacked after rebuking woman changing clothes
By Richard Weir  |   Tuesday, November 30, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

Natacha Andre.
Photo by Herald file

A 36-year-old homeless woman was ordered held on $5,000 bail yesterday after police said she attacked an MBTA bus driver in Mattapan, spitting in her face and smacking her with a metal pipe after the operator told her she couldn’t change her clothes on the bus.

Natacha Andre, 36, is charged with assault and battery and wrongful interference with the operation of an MBTA vehicle following Sunday’s 12:30 p.m. tirade that sent the driver to a hospital to be treated for bruises and a sprained left arm, according to a police report.

It is the second time in as many weeks that violence erupting on the T has led to arrests and injuries. On Nov. 19, Carlos Espinoza, 28, of Brighton was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon — a 1.7 liter tequila bottle — following a fight on a Green Line trolley on Commonwealth Avenue.

Police said after assaulting and threatening two men and a woman, all from Waltham, Espinoza then smashed the bottle over one of the men’s faces, slicing his lip.

Sunday’s mayhem broke out when Andre boarded the Route 31 bus without paying and, after being ordered by the driver to come up front and fork over her fare, returned to the back of the bus and repeatedly rang the bell, police said.

The driver then noticed Andre removing her clothes and “told her that she could not change her clothes on the bus,” the report said.

Once off the bus, Andre allegedly brandished a “long metal pipe” and struck the side of the bus before smacking the driver through an open window, hitting her left arm, the report said.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1299740

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Person dies after being hit by MBTA trolley

Person dies after being hit by MBTA trolley

By Associated Press  |   Sunday, October 24, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage
BROOKLINE — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is investigating the death of a person who was hit by a trolley in Brookline.

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo says the pedestrian was killed early Sunday by an eastbound trolley on the tracks of the Green Line between the Longwood and Fenway stops.

That area is fenced on both sides.

The person’s identity and gender weren’t immediately released later Sunday. Pesaturo tells WCVB Channel 5 in Boston that transit police are investigating.

___

Information from: WCVB-TV, http://www.thebostonchannel.com

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1291177

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