Dramatic video captures shootout between Charlotte bus driver and passenger
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Dramatic video shows a bus driver and a passenger opening fire on each other on a moving bus in Charlotte, North Carolina, this month after an argument that left both men seriously injured, transit authorities said.
The shootout, which happened May 18 while others were on the bus, began when a passenger authorities identified as Omarri Tobias got up while the vehicle was moving and asked the driver to let him off between stops, Charlotte Area Transit System officials said.
The driver, David Fullard, told Tobias he would have to wait until the next designated stop, and an "argument ensued," Brent Cagle, the transit system's interim CEO, said at a news conference.
In video of the altercation the agency released last week, the bus driver and the passenger appear to have an exchange before Tobias pulls out a gun and Fullard takes out a firearm right after.
Bullets shatter a barrier between the driver and the passenger. It was not immediately clear from the video who fired first. The transit agency did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment.
Tobias and Fullard sustained life-threatening injuries but were stable and expected to make full recoveries, Cagle said.
Tobias faces several charges, including assault with a deadly weapon, he said.
It was not immediately clear whether Fullard would face any charges.
RATP Dev, the third-party operator of the city's buses, said it had "parted ways" with Fullard after he violated employee policy by carrying a firearm on the job, NBC affiliate WCNC of Charlotte reported. RATP Dev did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment.
Cagle said an investigation found Fullard did not use any of a number of alarm systems available to bus drivers, WCNC reported. He also said that it was standard procedure not to allow passengers off between bus stops but that drivers can make allowances if necessary.
Ken Harris, an attorney for Fullard, told WCNC the bus driver had worked with the transit system for nearly 20 years.
"Mr. Fullard is a long-term employee of the CATS bus system," Harris said before RATP Dev announced that it had parted ways with Fullard. "He loves his job, and he wants to continue to be there, and we want to make sure we address any issues that could come up related to this incident."
Harris also said incidents of bus drivers' being injured and assaulted while doing their jobs have been a persistent issue in Charlotte.
"You have these incidents that happen over and over again, where drivers are being assaulted, shot at, shot or killed," Harris said last week. "It creates a situation where drivers fear that they won't make it home."
In February 2022, an agency bus driver, Ethan Rivera, was shot in what authorities said was believed to be a road rage incident. He died from his injuries the next day, WCNC reported.
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Yup! More chaos in America, man!
I don't understand why Fullard was fired before a complete investigation was done.
Are bus drivers now expected to have super powers? Drive the bus while a lunatic is shooting at him and simultaneously hit the emergency alarms?
I think he should have been given a raise.
I'm sure that in his 20 years of service to this bus company he put up with a lot of crap from passengers.
Agreed. In this case his life was threatened.
Most companies do not allow their employees to carry firearms while working. Don't need a full investigation to make that conclusion.
If you let thug passengers have guns, you have to allow your drivers the same luxury.
First, nobody with the bus company notified them that they were allowed to carry firearms on the bus. Prove me wrong if you disagree with that.
Second, no you don't have to allow the bus driver to carry a gun.
Your statement is idiotic in the extreme.
This is the second occurence of this happening in the CATS system. The first bus driver, not carrying, didn't fare so well. The first perp was a puss shooting from his SUV due to a road rage incident...........
So?
Exactly, a dead bus driver would have been enough.
How many hundreds (thousands) of school children have died with Congress taking no action? Yet you are more concerned about 1 single bus driver?
I'm sure that, after using any one of the number of alarm systems available, the passenger would have realized the error of his ways, and returned peacefully to his seat without incident. Bullshit.
He followed standard procedure (minus the carrying), by not allowing the passenger to depart between stops, which prompted the passenger to immediately pull a gun. Could he have stopped the bus, and let him off? Yeah, but that's a Monday morning QB analysis. If you're crazy enough to pull a gun on a driver, because he doesn't make a non-scheduled stop at your request, what's to say you wouldn't pull the trigger in the time it would take for the driver to attempt a stop? Time for letting the passenger depart, without incident, could well have been gone. Driver may have saved his life, as well as those of his other passengers. But fuck him, he's gotta go.
The driver and kid have an argument and the kid comes back with a gun. If the kid's intention was to shoot the driver, the driver would be dead because the kid took the gun out behind the driver. The kid's gun is pointed at the floor. However, I would have done what the driver does next, use my gun -- I'm not going to risk my life. The driver brings up his gun and the kid then brings up his. Shooting. But the driver continues shooting wildly towards the rear of the bus -- this is the driver's first fuck up, there are passengers back there. The kid crawls toward the back door over another passenger. The driver fucks up again. The kid and passenger are both behind the seat at the rear of the bus and the driver fires another 3 shots. He's risking that passenger's life when his is no longer in danger. That passenger has two kids and said he thanks God it didn't go left. The driver then leaves the bus and fires another shot on the street -- the driver is not in danger and risks others' lives again. As a passenger, I would agree with the bus company -- he's gotta go.
I agree with that assessment with the exception of the drivers perception of the intent. If a gun is pulled you should assume nefarious intent..
Agreed. As I said in the post, I would've shot the guy. He threatened the driver and pulled a gun on him, I'm not going to wait for him to aim it. We get to examine all the camera angles and Monday morning quarterback to determine intent -- counts just as much as actual Monday morning quarterbacking.
I don't totally disagree. But, where I am from, you can use deadly force to protect other people, not just yourself. So, the shots at the back of the bus, where the passengers are, could be justified. Out on the street? I don't know about that.
The only thing the driver did wrong was not enough range time.
No. If you're going to carry a gun, you should be required to take situational training courses like the Police. You should be required to periodically qualify like the Police. Guns are dangerous and if you're going to be carrying one in public, you should have a demonstrated proficiency and you should have been exposed to a wide variety of situations. I've been shooting for well over 50 years and about 10 years ago I started shooting with a newbie. He was all I'm going to protect my family... I took him to a theater where they have Glocks modified to fire infrared and cycle with CO2. There is a theater screen controlled by an instructor who projects situations and can change the path of a scene in many ways. The newbie killed a 4 or 5 innocents in the first hour. He actually shot the same delivery guy again when the scene repeated. We went back a couple more times, his responses improved exponentially.
Agree to disagree, I think more harm is done to a greater number of people by letting illiterate morons vote, or posting hate speech online. So why should poor people have to go without protection because they can’t afford the advanced training to exercise their constitutional rights. I have carried for years, and given training classes, I’m sure you have heard the same stories I have. Once the adrenaline starts flowing the training is gone for 99% of the population.
Maybe my financial situation allows me this: I would tax guns progressively to provide this training. It would not only make everyone safer, it would actually help people thrust into likely once-in-a-lifetime deadly situations. The right thing to do is often not to shoot -- my friend learned this by getting himself and me killed during the training. Anyway, at least you'd know something. That driver spraying the back of the bus blindly and firing at someone crawling away -- he's like my friend before the training. Maybe that all goes out the window as you said, but I'd still support the training. It must help or you'd think the police wouldn't have to take it.
My dad sent me to PAL to be taught about guns by the local police. They also took me to a range and I fired .22 rifles. I was probably 10. My dad did this because many had guns in rural PA. Maybe 7 years later, the kid two doors down from us accidentally shot his dad and killed him. The family was destroyed. He was crippled mentally. The daughter left. The mother became sort of crazy -- we all avoided her. I don't know the specifics of the shooting, but maybe it didn't have to happen.
I live 3 hours away from Charlotte. Watching the news here, Charlotte is the NC version of Chicago. But we've all seen how reliable the news is.
You aren’t far off. Influx from the shitholes in the northeast
Here I was hoping you'd tell me I was wrong.
Shame, shame, shame for the two black men letting their machismo get the best of them! And it is the driver who while defending himself showed so much reckless disregard for his passengers that he shot down the length of the bus several times without bothering to stop the bus which ran up on the curb and had potential to kill anyone in its path. There could be potential city charges assessed to the bus company. Then, there is the matter of the city policy on guns on buses in the possession of bus drivers (there is a history on account of this from the early bus segregation days when (white) drivers used to beat the daylights, shoot, and/or kill (black) passengers who simply sassed them or wouldn't follow directives).
Also, the bus company is highly probably going to be sued (and the city too) for such a traumatic act on a public bus.
1. The experienced driver knew better. He should have, at the least, stopped the bus and parked.
2. At which time upon stopping, he could have invited or ordered the 'offender' off his bus.
3. The driver knew that in his wheel house of possibilities (to deescalate) in an emergency (this is one with a gun involved) he would have JUSTIFIED to let this man off his bus not at the regular stop. He had camera footage explaining his reasoning (taken from several angles even).
4. This explains why drivers should not carry on their jobs; their is a temptation to take matters into one's own hands!
There it is: The good guy (bus driver with an unauthorized gun) versus the bad guy (the passenger with an unauthorized gun) playing out before our eyes. While I do not condone in any way shape or fashion what that young kid did there were two passengers (a man/a woman) on the bus! (Don't really know if the woman got off at a stop before the gunfire as she is not seen during the shooting phase. That is weird in itself, because if the woman got off . . . why didn't the passenger with the gun? Since that is what he really wanted to do anyway?)