Two violent incidents in two days -- one on a Madison Metro bus and one in a bus transfer point parking lot -- highlight the urgent need for video cameras on buses, a Madison bus driver said Friday.
On Thursday night, a bus driver was beaten by four teens -- a girl and three boys -- after he asked them to stop swearing and rough-housing, Madison police said.
The driver had pulled the bus over near Madison Area Technical College on the North Side. Although he had cuts and bruises on his face, he did not need medical help, police spokeswoman Jennifer Krueger Favour said.
Then Friday afternoon, witnesses in the West Transfer Point parking lot near Whitney Way and Tokay Boulevard watched as a 15-year-old boy punched a 22-year-old man. When police were called, the teen hopped on a departing bus. He was caught by police several blocks away, Lt. Pat Malloy said.
In January, police responded to a fight among 20 to 30 youths, some with baseball bats, at the West Transfer Station.
A month earlier, young men were pushing girls into the snow at the East Transfer Station and beat a 42-year-old man who asked them to stop.
Incidents like these prompted Metro Transit and the City Council to respond positively in October to bus drivers' requests to install video cameras on five buses.
And in early March, the City Council voted unanimously to increase the camera count and put one or more on 15 buses.
Metro Bus is also preparing a contract that would put surveillance cameras at the South Transfer Point and eventually perhaps the more recently beleaguered West Transfer Point, said Ald. Ken Golden, a 16-year-member of the Transit and Parking Commission.
"We have received information (about problems), and we've processed it by creating a very comprehensive safety plan," Golden said. "But cameras alone are not going to do it. Good communications from the drivers to dispatchers to the police, all are necessary. And with warm weather coming, obviously there's going to be more action. So yeah, we need to hurry."
So far, the earliest cameras are expected to arrive is late spring or early June, said Sharon Williams, a driver and among the most vocal supporters of the video cameras.
But she said that's not good enough.
Had the cameras been installed, they may have deterred the teens in all of the incidents from getting physical, Williams said. If not, they would at least provide evidence for prosecution.
"They're going to put cameras in this summer, but we want them now." she said. "Do we have to wait for somebody to get killed first?"