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Police: Man chokes bus driver who wouldn't let him off between stops

Transit Police report arresting a Burlington man they say was so angered his T driver wouldn't let him off between stops near the Burlington Mall that he threw a tantrum that included him smashing windows and ended with him grabbing the driver's throat and screaming "Do you want to die?"

That was enough to get the driver to stop the bus and Daniel Koolick, 21, ran off the bus, police say. But then, as Transit and Burlington police converged on the scene, Koolick realized that in all the excitement, he had left his phone behind on the bus:

Koolick, obviously not a member of the Mensa Society, returned amongst the police activity to retrieve his phone and was subsequently placed into custody for Aggravated Assault & Battery (to wit Strangulation), Threats to Commit a Crime and Malicious Destruction of Property.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

One can only hope

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Bus drivers have a tough job and deserve common courtesy. If you were a driver would you bother asking for fares or instruct passengers to stop smoking or swearing and risk getting attacked.

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As I read this, I hear in my head one my right wing buddies, or one of the "many" Anon posters declaring "bus drivers make too much money!"

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that we pay bus drivers less than train drivers.

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We shouldn't simply pay high salaries as the solution to drivers being attacked, spit on, and abused. We should install partitions to protect the driver. I think anyone would agree if you had to chose between 1) paying the driver sufficiently to compensate them for potential attack or 2) installing partitions to physically protect driver, wouldn't we all pick number 2?

I mean, the last I heard the reason partitions aren't installed is because of cost. Some how there is money for the bloated salaries, which the "left" and "right" love to argue about. How about all of "us" argue together to get partitions installed? That way you take the danger of the job off the table and you can more accurately assess compensation.

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The public should behave if they expect public transportation !

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A few of the buses on the 70/70A route do have newly installed plexi partitions. I don't know if it's a test or the beginning of a rollout or what.

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Cost is only part of the issue, last I heard the hold-up was getting something that the union would approve, because drivers don't want to feel like they're trapped in a little box for their whole day.

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That video is of a Seattle bus driver, not the driver from here.

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