Threats on a Muni Bus

So many different themes appear in the five minutes of surveillance video we received today from Muni. We’ve often said driving a bus is a difficult job, but a Muni operator is paid to handle the stress and be courteous to passengers. Robert Thompson failed in that regard. He was placed in a non-driving position after the I-Team informed Muni about his confrontation with a passenger last month.

Thompson was rude to passengers on his bus. When about ten children from the French school on Ashbury Street boarded, Thompson shouted at the passengers to move back: “I don’t know why you’re all so close to me, I don’t even like y’all.” An unnamed passenger answered back, “Well, you know, we love you.” And the confrontation was on. You can watch what happened here. We’re posting the raw surveillance video from the bus’ cameras – just click on the links for the different camera angles below. A warning – this is the raw, uncut video. We have not bleeped out the passenger’s profanity and racial epithets.

In our report two weeks ago, we posted the raw video from a passenger’s camera that shows Thompson standing over the passenger, lying on the sidewalk. At one point, the driver cocks his arm as if to punch.

Witnesses tell me that people on the bus were divided that day. Some sided with the driver; others say he overreacted. What do you think? You can post a comment below.

It appears as though Thompson broke a basic Muni rule – drivers are not supposed to exit the bus to confront a passenger.

Camera 1 view

Camera 2 view

Camera 3 view

Multi-camera view

Comments

[Greg]

It kills me to read this as the author of the N Judah Chronicles...the Union sticks up for the people like this who are mean and hate us, the taxpaying citizens who OWN MUNI and do not stand up for the drivers that are hardworking and care about us.

On my blog their union bullies are attacking me for the incident that involved a union steward shutting down the system at rush hour over some obscure work rule, they're attacking me and I'm not backing down, and I'm just glad there are real journalists like Dan Noyes who get paid to find out the truth out there.

Thank you Dan, and thank you KGO. Now keep it up and don't fill up the news with silliness and the journalism will survive the depression.

[Jerry Jarvis]

I always look forward to your stories, they are well researched.

[passing hair drug test]

I subscribed to your blog when is the next post,Thanks for such a nice post.