Civil rights leaders seek probe into Greyhound bus incident
Homewood man accused of vaping
A group of religious, political and civil rights leaders are pressing Greyhound for a full accounting of an incident in which a driver accosted a Homewood man on a recent bus trip.
At a news conference Saturday morning, Tim Stevens, chairman and CEO of the Black Political Empowerment Project, said he is asking Greyhound Lines Inc. CEO Dave Leach to investigate the incident, which occurred on a bus trip to Washington, D.C., from Pittsburgh Jan. 5. During the trip, passenger William Anderson said the driver wrongly accused him of using tobacco, pulled the bus to the side of the road and removed him from his seat. Mr. Anderson is African American and in a letter to Mr. Leach, Mr. Stevens called the driver’s behavior “inappropriate and possibly racist.”
“In our opinion, your driver jumped to some very troubling conclusions, which we believe may very well be based in racial bias,” Mr. Stevens wrote. “I hope you and your staff are aware that all people wearing hoodies are not criminals.”
The Rev. Rodney Lyde, pastor of the Baptist Temple in Homewood, called the incident “sleeping on a Greyhound bus while black.”
“No one should stand for this,” Rev. Lyde said at the news conference. “That is not right.”
Richard Stewart, president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the NAACP and a staff person from state Rep. Edward C. Gainey’s office also attended the news conference. A Greyhound spokeswoman said the complaint was under investigation.
Joseph Murrill, a retired Greyhound driver with 36 years service, said he saw the incident unfolding on the bus and said the driver was out of line.
“I understand he was doing his job, but that kind of went too far,” said Mr. Murrill, who lives in Baltimore. “The driver is a
friend of mine, but right is right and wrong is wrong. That was humiliating.”
Mr. Murrill said the driver, Wayne Torrence, stopped the bus and demanded that Mr. Anderson get out of the restroom.
“The driver isn’t really supposed to do that,” he said. “William didn’t even have his pants up. You don’t put a passenger up front so you can watch him.”
There was no evidence Mr. Anderson was smoking, Mr. Murrill said. Mr. Torrence could not be reached for comment.
Greyhound is a preferred way to travel for many minorities, Mr. Anderson said, and the bus line has a long history of racial discrimination. He said the driver should be fired.
Mr. Anderson, 46, said he is a lifelong Homewood resident and auto body shop owner.
“It was a horrendous experience,” he said. “I’ll never use Greyhound again.”