An RTA bus driver is facing charges and has been fired after he was seen on video assaulting a passenger in January.
It happened near W. 3rd and Superior on January 13. After a review, the driver was terminated last week. He will be arraigned on charges of felonious assault and abduction next Wednesday.
According to RTA police, bus driver Eric Brown got upset when a passenger threw papers on the grown and refused to pick them up. Brown locked the doors and wouldn't let the passenger leave -- and then the confrontation turned physical.
The victim was taken to the hospital and received stitches on his head. After a pre-termination hearing, Eric Brown was fired several weeks later.
Now, the Amalgamated Transit Union is trying to get him his job back.
"Eric lost it for a second and that second cost him his job," said ATU president Ronald Jackson.
Personnel files dating back to 1988 show Brown had no past problems with customers, even receiving multiple commendations from riders and supervisors.
Jackson said he believes discipline or suspension was necessary, but termination is taking it too far, particularly for a man with three decades of service and just weeks away from retirement.
"It's like giving a guy the guillotine for slapping somebody upside the head," Jackson said, adding that the ATU has since filed a grievance.
Brian Davis, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, disagrees. The NEOCH responded to help the homeless victim with a motel the week of the assault.
"I think he needs to be prosecuted and he needs to be terminated from his job. This is serious," Davis said. "We just can't have people who are dealing with members of the public taking the law into their own hands and trapping people and acting violent with them."
