No one likes to stand outside in this bitter cold but one person took it too far Monday.
As a bus driver sat idling his vehicle on Sheppard Ave. between Keele and Dufferin just after 5am, a brick suddenly came flying through his windshield.
The 'crime' that led to such a brutal punishment? Having a 'not in service' sign in the front of his vehicle.
There's a huge hole in the glass not far from where the driver sat. And cops found a huge brick nearby.
They're amazed the man wasn't seriously injured and they're incensed someone would take such foolish action for no apparent reason.
T.T.C. employees have been complaining about just this kind of abuse for some time. It's one of the issues that supposedly led to that wildcat walkout staged by the transit union last year.
Management is watching the injured man carefully. "He's okay. He's got a very bad headache. He's got six stitches but he's actually in very good spirits," relates Interim Chief G.M. Gary Webster.
The T.T.C. is working on getting cameras installed on all its buses system-wide. But that wouldn't have been enough to stop this incident since the culprit was never onboard the vehicle in the first place.
"We've got to the point where we're having an operator assaulted almost on a daily basis," Webster complains. "And it's all the way from verbal assaults to slapping, punching, spitting. Fortunately the assaults on our operators aren't normally as serious as this but we're taking them very seriously."
This case is going to be hard to solve. It's unlikely the driver saw much in the darkness and there's no description of the suspect, who fled the scene on foot.
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