‘Harrowing’ trip as bus riders stuck with murder suspect

• A police operation to arrest an alleged murderer involved leaving him locked on a Toronto region transit bus with dozens of passengers for nearly half an hour in what’s being described as a “harrowing” experience for those on board.

The incident took place on a GO Transit bus that was pulled over on the side of the Gardiner Expressway, east of Highway 27, on Thursday.

Anne Marie Aikins of Metrolinx, the agency that runs GO Transit, said passengers spent 25 minutes locked inside a GO bus with a man police later took into custody.

Passengers said they heard police tell the man that he was wanted for second- degree murder, she added.

Durham Regional Police confirmed the fact in a statement in which they said Joseph Scott Young was charged with second- degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Tehganni Lewis.

Aikins said many of the passengers on board the bus have voiced concerns about how things were handled.

“I’m sure they expected a sleepy ride into the city and instead had a very harrowing experience that clearly is still upsetting them today,” she said.

Police say the arrest took place on Thursday at about 11 p.m. as the bus was travelling from Hamilton to Toronto’s Union Station. Officers from the OPP and Hamilton police made the arrest on behalf of the Durham force after learning Young was wanted on an unrelated assault charge.

Aikins said the driver was told to get off the bus and lock the door, keeping passengers inside, she said.

Over the next 25 minutes, as more armed officers arrived, Aikins said passengers reported a man acting erratically on board the bus. They said the man, who they believed to be intoxicated, tried unsuccessfully to get off the bus. When that didn’t work, he report- edly sat down at the front of the vehicle and lit up a cigarette to the consternation of fellow passengers, Aikins said.

Police said Young was ultimately arrested without incident.

Some passengers on board the bus took to social media at the time of the arrest to voice their displeasure with the situation. “Why lock us in the GO bus for 25 minutes with a man charged with murder, realizing it’s gameover?” one tweeted.

Young is now facing charges in a slaying that took place last month in an Oshawa rooming house.

PETER J. THOMPSON / NATIONAL POST Passengers on-board a GO Transit bus were kept locked inside for25 minutes as police arrested a man and took him into custody.