Cleveland Bus driver Artis Hughes
Whatever happened to Cleveland bus driver Artis Hughes? This was the 22 year veteran who delivered an upper cut to an unruly female passenger named Shidea Lane?
Well, that driver was fired from his job and charged with assault last November. Initially nothing happened to him, but after the video was posted and went viral, The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) said his actions were not in accordance to the company’s policies and pulled the plug. The passenger who he hit was charged with disorderly conduct.
Hughes although never suspended or charged with assaulting a passenger before the infamous uppercut incident, had been written up for driving with headphones, talking too much to passengers and hitting his right mirror in a minor accident..Those trangressions didn’t help his case.
According to the Beachwood Patch, as of two days ago (Jan 9th 2013) the local transit union is fighting to get Hughe’s job back..
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 268 President William Nix said that the members approved the measure to seek arbitration unanimously.
According to the union contract, this arbitration will be binding — so the third party’s decision will stand.
“We would love for him to get his job back,” said Nix. “He should be made whole.”
He added that Hughes’ firing sent a bad message and was followed by other assaults on bus drivers. “Anyone who wants to get away with something, you can just go out and attack a bus driver and you won’t get caught and you won’t get arrested.”
What’s interesting about the entire saga is that everyone was up in arms justifying the driver’s actions.. Everyone was talking tough about what they would’ve and wouldn’t have done if they was driving the bus..Everyone was talking a good game.. blah, blah, blah…They even held a press conference talking about the help that would be needed..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmGMDs7OLOU
As we predicted after the dust settled, most people have gone silent and are nowhere to be seen. For all the tough talk, very few have taken time to look out for the unemployed driver..This should be a lesson to all.. keep your hands to yourself or risk suffering the consequences and while the crowd may cheer you on, that’s all they’ll do.. When the crap hits the fan, you’ll be on your own.. Lets hope for the driver’s sake the union can get his job back.. Also there have been several other incidents of drivers being assaulted by unruly passengers since Hughes was fired..
Next Time Keep your Hands to Your Dog Gone Self!
I meant that for the girl who started the actions that led to her getting a Mortal Kombat Uppercut
Wow!
This is not really self defense. So unfortuantely looks like he paid for it through his employment. Probably would have been better to just pin her down.
If she would have pulled something or he was in danger then couold have gotten out of it.
Years ago I got in a road rage; a woman got out of her car in gang paraphanalia and ran up to me while i was in mine. I ended up smacking her half way accross the street. I was shakin like a leaf the rest of the day; realizing she almost flew into oncoming traffic.. Not worth it !!!!!!! My own justification was that this person is running up in my car ; I don’t knlow what shes got on her therefor I was in danger.
How about call the police and locking her in until the police come. Kids have big mouths and he fed himself into that. She was an idiot but he was the bigger idiot!
Unfortunately you can’t ‘lock’ someone in. The lawyers would have a hay day with that calling it entrapment/imprisonment bullcrap. You didn’t give your attacker the common sense time to leave you alone by retreating.. (Yeah! Right! AFTER they hit you?!) ( Same goes for some stupid states saying if someone attacks you that you have to RUN AWAY until you are cornered and ONLY THEN do you have the right to fight back! Oh sorry! ‘DEFEND yourself!’ ) You could try ‘civilian arrest’ but you have to say it before you restrain them.
hope he’s good (blacK)
I never supported his behavior. That was ridiculous behavior for a supposedly grown-assed man in a professional capacity. He should NEVER have laid his hands on that woman, let alone deliver a potentially lethal blow to her. He should have pulled the bus over stood up and said the bus ain’t movin’ until she’s off of the bus. I’ll bet that the passengers would have put here off. If they didn’t, then while he standing outside he could’ve called someone who would. Brothas stop puttin’ your hands on sistas. Be MAN enough to walk away.
Bullshit!! Any woman who puts her hands on a man in a physical manner to provoke a fight deserves to get her ass whooped and I hope he sues for wrongful termination!!
Be ‘MAN ENOUGH’ to walk away from your job?!!!! “We suspended you because you didn’t continue your bus route. And we fired you because you exited the bus leaving it unattended with passengers onboard.”
If you spit on me or put your hands on me I dont care we are getting it in. A job is not worth your dignity.
I agree with you Duane. He shouldn’t have let his ego get the best of him. Stop the bus, tell her to get off or the bus ain’t movin. If she doesn’t, call the transit police…..he’d still be driving today if he’d did that.
No job is worth your dignity. Some things in life are not going to be learned in court but in real life situations. The hood rat thought I can get a free hit in cause he won’t hit back. No one has the right to hit you! What would you do if a girl put her hands on your son? Tell him to take it? Who the heck says it doesn’t hurt? If they are stupid enough to hit – they are mature for the consequence.
All this talk of being a man,ain’t got shit to do with the fact of being human and reacting to folks who act in a threatening manner.We need to stop pushing the line about what makes a person a man. I notice no one said,”she should have been acting like a WOMEN”. Its and ugly reality that some women will go out of their way to create situations like this and the Mcdonalds incident,that result in them being injured. What really pisses me off is, if this had been a man he hit,would you all be saying the same tired shit? People are human, if you push them you’ll get this results. If you’ve never worked in a service postion dealing with the public then you don’t get what this man has to deal with daily. I have grown daughters, they are strong and willing to stand up for what they believe. This doesn’t mean starting shit just to see what they can get away with. I’m not for anyone getting their asses kicked, but you get what you put out.I hope he gets his job back.
I agree with you she was dead wrong and should’ve never touched him. But we all need think about what happen to this man lively hood because some crazy female. She needs to be band from riding the bus for the rest of her life.
I agree to a certain extent. But we dont know the entire argument because the video doesn’t show it. So the bus driver could’ve been the initiator of the argument. Bus drivers can be real assholes. And yeah he works with the public and the public can be hard to deal with as well but thats the profession he chose. Hes been in the business for 22years, he should know how to handle himself in a professional manner.
Argument doesn’t really matter in this case. The woman physically attacked the man first, while he was driving a buss, ergo endangering the lives of everyone on the bus.
In this day of cameras and cell phones ; best to keep it straight
Back in the day a lot more stuff went down and it was more of he said she said or nobody said.
But really theres lessons to be learned from all angles here and its pretty obvious what they are
Hope he gets his job back.. After all he was just defending himself!!! -watchme
Please…get his job back my a$$. Everybody should keep their hands to themselves. Bus drivers shouldn’t be assaulted, but they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with hitting people either. What happens when the next driver ignores company policy and decides to take matters into his or her own hands. Are we going to cry and lament when he or she hits the wrong person and gets shot? Anybody here gonna pay their medical bills?
You do realize that Lane began the assault by spitting on and then punching Hughs in the face? He had a right to defend himself. Yes, give his job back.
thats sucks.. don’t follow the crowd bc in the end they won’t have your back! -seeme
I wonder what happen tooo!! I hope he got his gig back because homegirl was wrong on soo many levels..—pink
As a retired Bus Operator, I support his actions not bcuz he’s a Bus Operator but bcuz he has a right 2 defend himself regardless whether it’s a female or male. She should’ve kept her hands 2 herself. You hit You should expect 2 get hit back!!! It’s Not a point of ignoring company policy, it’s a point of Enough is Enough!! Trust me, all of you can talk about what shouldn’t’ve been done or what you would’ve done… Yea, Right!!! It’s Not that simple! And guess what??? It’s not Always the passengers that cause you problems. A lot of times you have more issues out of the company.
I’d be seriously interested in knowing what started the argument on the bus in the first place.
Because it seemed as though both driver and passenger were both trading negative and insulting behavior – name calling (which is the 1st sign of disrespect, even if two or more people are playing) threats – and getting off on who could be the most loud, aggressive and/ or the most bad assed. This is how shit gets started that leads into physical altercations, serious injury, jail/prison, and/or death.
She was way up in his personal space – however he wasn’t telling her to either sit down look for her change – or get off of the bus. He didn’t stop the bus and either demand that she leave, or call for assistance. He was caught up in power tripping, and had no regard whatever for his responsibilities to the other passengers on the bus. He definitely wasn’t controlling the situation at all – which was most of what pissed him off. He was trading insults with her – and she was making him look and feel bad.
Then when HE finally gets tired of it – or gets out played, one or the other – HE gets up with the macho HE-male shit and not only upper cuts her, but grabs her and starts bashing her around? What crap! They should have both been thrown off of the bus! Then they could have brawled in the streets if that was the page it was on.
But HE-male’s stupid cave man remark about – “if she wants to act like a man, i’ll treat her like a man” wasn’t about him trying de-escalate and control a hostile situation, nor was it about him trying to keep his job. This entire situation was about his own self-aggrandizement. He was trying to prove HE was more male than her! Well damn, he got his point across. HE is definitely more male than she is!
Fortunately, there is a great deal of difference between being a male and being a Man. He doesn’t know it, but maybe he’ll learn sometime in the distant future.
In the meantime, this bus driver is just a clown who got tired of not being funny. So HE clipped a female a good one, and bashed her around to show every one that HE was a bad ass and HE wasn’t taking any shit from anyone, particularly if it didn’t have a dick.
Everybody’s also trying to get paid – from the passengers who think they took the Academy Award winning video, to the bus driver, and the several “witnesses.”
Stay tuned folks. Don’t go away and don’t touch that remote! Oprah’s about to be on with an exclusive about road rage in a bus…!
So in conclusion:
There are abusive bus drivers and abusive passengers. But something generally sets things like this off, and this video wasn’t clear on what it was. And frankly, I do not think this guy should be driving a bus – or be in any public situation that could get stressful. I don’t care if he has been driving 22 years. He’s built up some issues. He’s gotten comfortable enough with and complacent enough on his job that he can threaten to send to jail, upper cut, and bash around a passenger that he’s been enjoying himself trading insults with for a good 20 minutes or more.
22 years ago in 1991, things were a lot different than they are now.
22 years ago they’d have both been lucky they weren’t around someone that was tired, just trying to get to where they were going, not into talking, hassled, and inclined to be strapped nasty whenever they set foot out the front door.
Because in the course of this amateur hour shit both the male bus driver and the female passenger could have ended up shot dead, which would have automatically endangered everyone else on the bus.
RTA would then definitely have been upset had the videos gone viral.
serious2020 you need to learn the facts of the case . He asked her to sit down and she did not do that .
He asked her to sit down – she didn’t – so he trades insults with her then upper cuts and slams her around on the bus? Excuse me, but his people and anger management skills are seriously deficient, i.e. they suck big time.
You conveniently left out the parts where (PRIOR to Hughes punching Lane) Lane spit in his face and punched HIM in the face. Anger management skills don’t include being a punching bag for Lane.
Do you suppose this bus driver might have shot her if he’d had a gun?
Recall, if you will, the story out of San Francisco, of the couple who went to the laundry to do clothes. She wanted to go home while the clothes washed as the laundry wasn’t that far from the house. He wanted her to stay. They argued verbally. He went home, filled a container with gasoline, went back to the laundry, doused her and then set her on fire…http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_22355333/san-francisco-man-charged-torching-girlfriend
His reaction to what even in layman’s terms is a minor altercation is completely over the top…. (i.e. him “asking” her to sit down – she didn’t, according to you) I wonder if he hits everyone who doesn’t do what he says?
Additionally, he sounds like the type of person who is used to having people say how high when he says jump….and if they don’t, he what? Hits them? Verbally abuses them? Threatens them?
What do you think, Joey? If you were a bus driver and someone didn’t sit down when you “asked,” would you upper cut them too?
Comments and questions such as “I wonder if he hits everyone…”, “he sounds like the type…” and then turning around to ask “well if you were a bus driver would you hit them…” equals up to a BIG FAIL. Bringing up a domestic violence episode as a comparison FAILS also. I know what I am talking about : social worker for 7 years and Domestic Violence Responder for Victims’ Rights with “#.#.” Police Department for 3 years. They explain the limitations to protecting and defending yourself from physical attackers.
As a waitress working the late-night shift, I deal with unruly men and women every single night. If and when I ever get into a physical argument with a customer– I will be prepared to fold up my apron and leave on the spot. Why in the hell would anyone– especially the bus driver expect to get his job back? It doesn’t work that way. Sorry! You have every right to do what you have to do to defend yourself but be prepared for the consequences. Time to brush up the resume, bruh.
2020 that is the most stupid thing i have read. The problem is feminisim has given us the double standard. I’m sick of women getting physical and as men we are suppossed to take the abuse. He was driving and she was distracting him and even hit him. What if that caused an accident and someone got killed or the bus crashed. She put everyone in danger. Where was her friend that was riding with her, how come she didn’t pay for her and sit her butt down. lastly, she was drunk! Act like a lady be treated like a lady. How you gonna judge a 59 year old man, he paid his dues. I don’t condone violence or hitting women but if a woman becomes a threat to me I will take that threat out. Can you imagine, how many of our soldiers would die if the Taliban switched to using only women insurgents.
The funniest thing…The bus driver so call witness…when it was time to appear in court…the witness who claimed she also spit on him,,,DID NOT APPEAR IN COURT…i guess scared of perjury…he was the only one on the entire bus who saw her spit….amazing!!!!
I am a caseworker who deals with the public on a daily basis…I have to face so many aggressive individuals, men and women who are aggressive when they are denied benefits…going so far as to being called btches, hoes and meet you after work…and yet I held on to my professional behavior…My response was to not engage in the argument…because that only escalate the problem…and call for security
You put your hands on me man or woman and I’ll lay your ass out like a pair of creased khakis. It was messed up but, nobody has the right to assault anyone but, everyone has the right to defend themselves. The both of them were wrong. Your mouth can write a check that your ass can’t cash; that’s one thing. If you put your hands on me it’ll definitely be a life lesson learned on your part.
This whole situation was unfortunate but, it just went downhill fast. SMH. At this point get over it and move on. It’s time to learn from this situation. At this point it is what it is.
People…If we slow down long enough to learn how to read and write properly, we will simultaneously learn how to process information with our brain instead of our fists.
After 18 years of living in America, not knowing how to properly write, speak and spell ONE language (English) is inexcusable. Even illegals have enough sense to get off of their mental behinds and exercise the mental patience it takes to learn a second language.
And why do we wear ignorance and mental laziness as a badge of courage? Why is this? B/c we’re scared of being labeled as a sell-out? Please! This is why other races call us lazy and saddle the rest of us who did do our homework when we were hungry, with the stigma of being lazy and stupid when we compete for jobs, mates, bank loans, college admissions, etc.
If you want to be heard, prove you have exercised your brain muscle, more than your fists. This is the first indicator that you ARE a thinker and your opinion deserves consideration.
(Or at least use a Spell-Checker!)
Yeah, never defend yourself, good point.
Now go stand in the corner an wait for a handout.
This is not an english class and you are no ones teacher. Who cares what other races think.
You are a sellout because you are too concerned about what white people think. Do you think because you speak or write concisely you will be less of a nigger to them. You are delusional.
Those stereotypes never were the truth in them to begin with.
Keep drinking the Kool-Aid of white propaganda you clown.
This cunt hit him first & she got am upper cut which she deserved….
Yes they are both grown female or not she deserved every bit of what she got he could have handled it better but if she had puts her hands on me while I was trynna do my job she would have gotten uppercut 2 he was well within his rights what if he was driven she would have engangerd every one on that bus so y’all can make her out 2 b the victim all u want and I will reiterate he could have handle it better and I don’t condole in male hitting females or vis versa but she got some well deserved since knocked into her and let’s not for she did assault him 1st point blank everyone ones was talk if someone hits u 1st u betta hit them back
I think he was saving his passengers. Because she could’ve made him crash the bus, when she hit him. A bus is a moving missile and can damage things.
Women CANNOT have it BOTH WAYS! Either they’re EQUAL to us (in which case it’s OKAY for a man to strike them) OR they’re BENEATH US (in which case we shouldn’t hit them ever)! But you can’t have it both ways! If a woman strikes a man, she WILL get struck like a GOT DAMNED Kitchen Match!!
I’d have sent that Hair Hatted Winch through the front windshield of the bus!!
Right on…..