Outrageous!

This morning on WABC radio, Curtis and Kuby (popular NYC talk show hosts) discussed a truly outrageous incident that happened Monday. I only caught some of it on my morning commute, but enough to find an article in The New York Post. As far as I know, the Post is still the only publication discussing it.

So around 9 on Monday morning, two teenage truants, 17 and 15, boarded a bus in the Bronx. They refused to pay the fare. The bus driver drove two stops before deciding he had enough, and he told them to get off or he'd call the police. The two punks then punched the bus driver, wrestled him off the bus (presumably he had opened the door) and even beat him with a stick! The bus driver was taken to the hospital with pretty bad injuries. Police caught up with the two assailants, charged them with third-degree assault, and gave them only desk-appearance tickets. That was it? They beat up a guy such that he needed treatment at a hospital, and they were charged with just a misdemeanor? NYC statutes make it a felony to assault a bus driver, according to the Post. Moreover, the desk-appearance tickets meant the two were merely given a court date. How many other buses have they boarded and refused to pay the fare, and how many other bus drivers must they assault before they're thrown into juvenile detention?

Then after the bus driver was released from the hospital, police escorted him to the local precinct and charged him with third-degree assault. The teenage punks had no apparent injuries and refused medical treatment, yet they claimed the bus driver was "very aggressive" toward them. And the police believed them enough to charge the bus driver.

Kuby noted something that I didn't know: NYC public school students are issued metro cards. Therefore, the two juvenile delinquents had no excuse not to pay...unless they weren't from New York City? As I said, I only caught part of the show, and I'm not sure what else Curtis, Kuby or callers added.

From my understanding of the story, each NYPD responsible for filing charges deserves to be fired. No severance pay, no administrative leave, just fired. There's no justification for making a victim into a criminal.