Police are looking for a man they say punched an MTA bus driver in the face last month in Bushwick.
The brute slugged the 34-year-old driver in the forehead after he refused to let him off a B20 bus between stops at Schaefer Street and Wilson Avenue at 7:15 a/.m. on Sept. 24, according to the police report published Wednesday.
The violent passenger had boarded the bus in the north Brooklyn neighborhood just minutes earlier, and when he asked to exit again, the operator told him it wasn’t safe, prompting the rider to lose his cool and sock the transit worker, according to cops.
The assailant fled the scene on foot, and the driver went to Wyckoff Hospital for treatment of his wounds. The MTA took the bus out of service.
The NYPD press office released a surveillance video showing the alleged attacker in a red hoodie and grey sweatpants.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority condemned the assault.
“Violence against MTA workers is reprehensible and will not be tolerated, and those who commit such acts have no place on public transit,” said Ray Raimundi. “We are fully cooperating with the NYPD to ensure the alleged perpetrator is brought to justice as we stand with our colleague recovering from this attack.”
MTA bus drivers are far more likely to face harassment than their counterparts on the subways, due to their direct exposure to the riding public.
Nearly three-quarters of transit worker harassments, or 73%, are against bus drivers, compared to 22% targeting subway workers.
More serious assaults are about equally distributed between both modes of transport.
A rash of attacks in the spring prompted union leaders to call on Metropolitan Transportation Authority bigwigs to install fully sealed off cabins for drivers.
