Windsor Star

WINNIPEG BUS DRIVER STABBED TO DEATH

Man worked nights to help raise grandchild

- DOUGLAS QUAN National Post With files from The Canadian Press

Irvine Fraser worked the evening shift as a Winnipeg bus driver, so he could help look after his granddaugh­ter during the daytime.

Early Tuesday morning, Fraser, 58 — who was looking forward to retirement as early as next year, according to colleagues — died after a passenger allegedly stabbed him at the end of his route at the University of Manitoba.

“There is no reason this should’ve happened. … My fellow brother was murdered for doing his job last night, that’s all I know,” fellow transit driver Nelson Giesbrecht told reporters.

As police reviewed security footage and tried to sort through a reason for the attack, members of the transit community said the case highlighte­d the need for better protection­s for bus operators.

“I don’t want Irvine’s death to be in vain,” said John Callahan, president of Local 1505 of the Amalgamate­d Transit Union.

Callahan said protective barriers have been tested in the past, but some drivers felt claustroph­obic and worried that they might become trapped in an emergency.

There are now some calls for buses to be redesigned with driver’s side doors to give them an escape route, he said.

“Countless numbers of transit workers are assaulted in many ways every year. Most are the result of a fare dispute, but an alarming number happen just because someone wants to do violence to a bus driver,” the union’s internatio­nal president, Larry Hanley, said in a statement.

Details of what prompted the attack are still not clear. Union officials said the altercatio­n started on the bus and then spilled outside the bus.

Nobody else was believed to be on the bus when the attack occurred, Winnipeg police said. They said officers got the call just before 2 a.m. and found Fraser suffering from serious stab wounds. He died at hospital.

Officers, led by a canine unit, arrested a 22-year-old suspect trying to cross the frozen Red River.

Friends and co-workers, meanwhile, remembered Fraser as a big man with a booming voice, easy smile and hearty handshake. Union officials said Fraser and his wife looked after their young granddaugh­ter after their daughter passed away.

“For a guy that had a lot of struggles, this is not the way he should’ve gone,” Callahan said.

“It’s heartbreak­ing for all of us,” said Aleem Chaudhary, Local 1505’s executive vice-president. “He was liked by everybody — always had time to talk to you.”

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