buses

Video of confrontation between the driver of a 101 bus out of Sullivan and the preacher who refused to shut up.

A concerned citizen posts a photo of a big fat tour bus parked at a T bus stop:

Yet another tour bus illegally parked in a city bus stop, causing city bus to double park and disembark passengers in the middle of the street! Please do something about this. We just went to a meeting at City Hall regarding this matter. The Leather District is NOT a bus depot!

Maggie reports on 93 bus driver 69999, one of whose passengers yesterday afternoon was blind and who asked him to let her know when they got to her stop - only he didn't, which led to this exchange:

Operator #69999 replied "Well I stopped and you didn't get off."

Andrea: "You didn't tell me."

Operator #69999: "Was I supposed to pick you up and carry you off?"

A Roslindale man was pulled off a 23 bus and arrested on indecent assault and battery charges Friday after he allegedly moved his hand up the thigh of a woman sitting next to him.

According to an MBTA Transit Police report, the woman, 68, told officers that Douglas Beaton, 46, appeared to be asleep - but occasionally muttering incomprehensibly - as she sat on the bus. As the bus stopped at Columbia Road and Washington Street shortly after 6 p.m., however:

The victim states that she felt the hand of Beaton on her right leg, the hand was rubbing her thigh under her skirt. The victim slapped Beaton's hand away, "telling him to stop and not to put his hands on her."

The driver, noticing the now upset passenger, asked her to come forward and tell him what happened, after which he stopped the bus and summoned police.

Innocent, etc.

Boston Police are looking for two men who held somebody up at knifepoint at the lower Ruggles busway and got away with a laptop, around 10:40 p.m.

Both suspects are black; one was wearing a dark jacket and a red plaid sweater, the other a Chicago White Sox cap. They were last seen running toward Melnea Cass Boulevard. A possible suspect was found at Kerr Place and Kerr Way; the laptop at Melnea Cass and Tremont not long after.

A Fall River man was arrested Saturday on charges he took video of at least one man urinating in the men's room at the South Station bus terminal.

Kevin Wilkinson, 44, was caught red-handed with an iPod Nano with the streaming video of a man at a urinal, according to an MBTA Transit Police report. The arresting officer reported there were additional videos on the device, but that he stopped looking because the first video was enough.

The police report says officers approached Wilkinson around 1:20 p.m. after another man reported some guy seemed to be just standing there, videoing urinal users. The report says Wilkinson agreed to let the officers take a look at his cellphone and his Nano. The cellphone had a few photos of "what appeared to be consenting adult males in the nude," but the iPhone had video of what the officers recognized as the bus-terminal men's room and a man using it.

Wilkinson was charged with photographing, videotaping or electronically surveilling a partially nude or nude person.

Innocent, etc.

Wicked Local Cambridge reports on an incident early on Aug. 31 on Mass. Ave., in which an alleged drunk screaming epithets at riders on a T bus was pulled off and then started hitting his head on the sidewalk. When an officer put his boot under the guy's head to keep him from cracking his head off, the report states, the man began bitting the officer's boot.

MBTA Transit Police report arresting a Dorchester man for indecent assault and battery on a 28 bus Saturday afternoon - thanks in part to the bus driver, who refused to open the doors for him as she pulled into Dudley station.

According to a police report, Jose Morales, 28, was sitting near the front of the bus around 2:20 p.m., Saturday, when the bus stopped at Warren and Circuit streets, and he stood up and grabbed the left butt cheek of a woman sitting in front of him. She screamed she'd just been grabbed and stood up - at which point Morales grabbed her again, police say.

The bus driver told police Morales tried to get off the bus, but she instead kept the doors closed until she got to Dudley station, where police were waiting.

The T reports Morales is the 14th person arrested for indecent assault and battery on its system this year.

This past December on the 28:
The bus wasn't the only thing that was jerking between Dudley and Ruggles Friday afternoon

Innocent, etc.

Tom Myers took this photo of the Cambridge Street bus stop in Inman Square, adds:

Worth closing the T.

A man arrested but never tried for stabbing and spitting on a man on a 39 bus in Jamaica Plain in 2004 will finally face charges after police tracked him to his new home in Roxbury.

Michael Hughes, 64, never went before a jury because not long after his arrest, he was turned over to Maryland authorities to face trial on charges he killed a man preparing Christmas baskets for the poor in 1974. Convicted of second-degree murder in 2005, he spent three years in a Maryland prison, then at some point after his release came back to Boston.

According to a report by MBTA Transit Police, Hughes went berserk on a 39 bus at South and Centre streets around 4 p.m. on Sept 5, 2004 when he thought the "openly gay" man behind had deliberately kicked his seat. He allegedly whipped out a knife and began slicing the man's arm as he also spit at him and began screaming anti-gay epithets at him.

Boston Police first noticed Hughes was back in town last fall, Transit Police report: A Boston Police detective noticed a man he thought was Hughes in a homeless shelter on Massachusetts Avenue in November.

But Hughes evaded the two police forces until yesterday, when the same detective spotted him entering 6 Hartford St. in Roxbury. He alerted Transit Police, who found a default warrant for the 2004 attack and sent several detectives and officers to the address yesterday afternoon.

Police say Hughes tried to slip out the back door and then by denied any knowledge of the 2004 incident or of the alias he used at the time. His tattoos and physical characteristics, however, did him in, police report.

Innocent, etc.

Goofus gets into a beef with the driver of a 39 bus in JP, pushes him and throws coins at him and now could be looking at A&B charges.

Gallant is sitting on a bench by City Hall chatting with a friend when he notices a very confused tourist couple pulling suitcases exit the Orange Line and hesitantly start toward City Hall, prompting him to ask "You guys lost?" and getting them pointed in the right direction, toward Downtown Crossing.

MBTA Transit Police report arresting a woman they say punched her infant son hard enough to make his mouth bleed on a 23 bus yesterday afternoon.

According to police, when fellow passengers on the bus "expressed their concern for the well being of the child," Erica Ryan, 25, told them to mind their own business.

Police say Ryan told responding officers that "I was trying to feed my baby on the crowded bus, then my hand slipped and I hit him in the mouth."

But fellow passengers told a different story:

Paul Levy wonders why the T still takes liquor ads; notices:

[T]he T seems to be targeting those ads to the poorer sections of town and near colleges and universities

A man in the process of being removed from an MBTA bus for threatening to kill the driver and his family at Andrew station yesterday evening took all his clothes off and offered passersby a whack at his genitals, according to an MBTA Transit Police report.

[Duane] Brennan began taking off his clothes while shouting "you wanna break my balls?" Brennan removed his sneakers and socks, then his t-shirt and shorts. Brennan then removed his underwear. Brennan stood in front of Andrew Station, completely naked, in the presence of numerous passerby, and shouted "You wanna break my balls, here they are." At this time, I informed Brennan that he was under arrest. Before placing Brennan in handcuffs, I ordered him several times to put his shorts back on first. Brennan refused. I placed Brennan in handcuffs. A search of his person was not necessary.

Brennan, who listed the Pine Street Inn as his address and who had been on a Route 10 bus when he allegedly became agitated, was charged with indecent exposure, disorderly conduct and threats to commit a crime.

Brennan was held in lieu of $1,000 bail following his arraignment in South Boston today and ordered to stay away from Andrew pending the outcome of his case, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

Innocent, etc.

Audio ads on buses, anyone?

MBTA Transit Police report arresting a Jamaica Plain man on indecent assault and battery charges for an alleged attack at the Forest Hills busway on Saturday.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports an unexpected federal grant could provide enough money to start work on the $200-million rehab of the "temporary" facility - which the T recently said it couldn't do at all.

Dudley Square Main Streets reports June 25 is Art Smart, featuring art, food and entertainment between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. But also, Mayor Menino and MBTA General Manager Rich Davey will be on hand to unveil the Dudley station's newest amenity: A state-of-the-art public restroom.

Liam Day is writing poems about specific MBTA bus routes.

Compare to subway poems.

Unless you want to wind up on a wanted poster.

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports the City Council's Environment and Health Committee will hold a hearing on June 13 to press the MBTA to replace the allegedly temporary bus facility for which the T has been planning a replacement since 1998.

The committee is chaired by JP's own Councilor Matt O'Malley. In April, the T didn't include a proposed $200 million overhaul in its five-year capital plan. In addition to a new bus-maintenance facility, the proposal would have turned part of the current site - used as a trolley yard until the T "temporarily" halted Arborway trolley service in the mid-1980s - into parkland and new residential and retail space.

An SUV driver and a passenger on an MBTA bus were taken to the hospital when the two vehicles collided on Hyde Park Avenue around 5:30 p.m. - the driver with a cut left arm, the passenger with a hand injury, the MBTA says. Two more passengers were taken to the hospital for observation.

According to the MBTA, the SUV pulled out of a driveway in front of the inbound 32 bus, at 1715 Hyde Park Avenue. The left front of the SUV struck the right front of the window. The SUV careened through a chain-link fence and down a two-foot drop near an old factory building; the bus's right front window shattered. T police are continuing to investigate.

State and Boston Police sealed off Hyde Park Avenue on either side of the collision until after the last of the passengers was taken away in an ambulance.

Williamson and BrittThe MBTA reports two teens were arrested yesterday on charges they tried to rob a man by grabbing him as he was getting on a bus at Warren and Waverly streets in Roxbury.

According to a police report, the man, 63, was able to maintain his grip on his wallet after he was pulled off the 23 bus and the two teens fled - along with a pack of eight other teens, all dressed in black and red, and one with a pit bull.

Andrew Britt, 17, of Dorchester and Sadiq Williamson, 18, of Roxbury, were charged with attempted armed robbery after, police say, officers found a knife on Williamson.

Innocent, etc.

The two MBTA bus drivers caught yelling at each other as they tried to maneuver around a tight turn in Chelsea's Bellingham Square earlier this week will be suspended for 30 days, then fired, the T said today:

Video footage from Bellingham Sq Police surveillance cameras was reviewed and revealed that the operators did not maintain a high level of professionalism, did not comply with all traffic regulations of the city, and failed to operate the buses in the safest manner possible at all times. The safety of MBTA customers is paramount. Employees must not engage in so-called "horseplay" or practical jokes since doing so can lead to injury or damage to property. To engage in this type of behavior is not only discourteous but it also goes against the Authority's training of Defensive Driving and taking the safer course of action at all times.

Chelsea Police cited both drivers for operating to endanger late Tuesday afternoon.

Channel 25 reports: