Suspect in bus driver attack has cell of a time getting away
If you’ve just choked a bus driver in a dispute about where the bus should stop, it’s probably not a good idea to go back for the phone you left behind.
That’s what Transit Police and prosecutors allege Daniel Koolick, 21, of Burlington did Saturday when an MBTA driver wouldn’t let him off at the Burlington Mall.
At about 3:30 p.m., officers went to Middlesex Turnpike, where the driver told them a man, later identified as Koolick, boarded the bus at Alewife station and, while traveling through the mall, decided he wanted to get off, police said.
The driver told him he couldn’t stop the bus between stops but assured him he would let him off at the next stop, which was less than a minute away, police said.
“When (Koolick) was denied that request, he became belligerent,” Assistant District Attorney Kristen Hughes said at his arraignment yesterday in Woburn District Court.
Police said the defendant began yelling at the driver and kicking the doors and windows of the bus before grabbing him by the throat and screaming, “Do you want to die?”
Koolick then fled the bus but, in his haste, left his cell phone behind, police said.
“Numerous” transit and Burlington officers descended on the scene, where Koolick — “obviously not a member of the Mensa Society,” Transit Police opined in a press release — had returned to retrieve his phone and was arrested.
Koolick, who was charged with burglary in 2014 in Vermont as well as larceny and violations of the conditions of his release, pleaded not guilty yesterday to aggravated assault and battery, threats to commit a crime and malicious destruction of property and was held on $2,500 cash bail. He is due back in court on Nov. 18.
Hughes made the admittedly “unusual” request that Koolick be barred from the MBTA if he makes bail. Judge Marianne Hinkle denied the request but barred Koolick from taking any bus driven by the victim, who was treated at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center.
“MBTA employees perform an invaluable public service day in and day out,” said Transit Police Superintendent Richard Sullivan. “No one has the right to physically assault or attack them. T police will vigorously pursue and prosecute anyone who does so.”