Greyhound Bus Passenger Attacks Female Ohio State Trooper [Video]

A female Greyhound Bus passenger is accused of attacking a female Ohio state trooper in a disturbing incident that was captured on cell phone video.

The bus driver, who was en route Thursday evening from Cleveland to Columbus, apparently had called the cops about a passenger allegedly behaving erratically and pulled over to the shoulder on I-71 in Morrow County, Ohio.

Trooper Tressa Winans boarded the bus and was escorting the initially cooperative passenger, identified by multiple media outlets as Antoinette Taylor, off the vehicle. That’s when the melee suddenly started and the trooper took several blows to the face. “All of a sudden you see fists flying and the trooper’s hat is knocked off and they’re falling out of the bus,” a Highway Patrol spokesman, Lt. Craig Cvetan, explained.

As portrayed in the video embedded below (NFSW for language), the suspect pinned the trooper under a guardrail and slugged her several more times. At this point, the officer appeared to be in very dire straits.

Two good Samaritans, the driver and another man, fortunately got off the bus and came to the assistance of Trooper Winans after about 30 very long seconds, which must have seemed like an eternity for the law officer. With their help in restraining the woman, the trooper then managed to cuff the suspect. A few minutes later, backup officers arrived on the scene.

Police charged Taylor, 26, with felony assault on a police officer. She bonded out of jail yesterday and was due in court today, but the hearing was postponed to later in the week, 19 Action News reported.

Both were treated at a hospital for minor cuts and bruises.

According to Zach Baugh, the passenger who filmed the Greyhound bus altercation and uploaded it to social media, the suspect “was talking about demons and how people with blue eyes are the devil. She was saying things, looking up in to the top of the bus and talking to people that weren’t there,” the NBC News Columbus affiliate reported.

“Typically, we would not encourage bystanders to get involved… By them getting involved and helping [the trooper] get out of the situation, it definitely limited her injuries,” Lt. Cvetan added about the Greyhound bus assault.

Video has unfortunately chronicled numerous assaults on mass transit that involve passenger on passenger or even a passenger vs. the driver, but a bus brawl of this kind in which an officer was allegedly assaulted by a passenger appears to be very rare.

[image credit: Kevin B]