A Cleveland bus driver has been suspended following the surfacing of an online viral video depicting him viciously punching a female passenger, transit officials report.
The 94-second video — posted on YouTube.com — begins with an unidentified woman shouting obscenities at the bus driver. The woman then appears to strike the bus driver, who gets up from his seat and approaches her before landing a brutal uppercut that knocks the woman down.
Just before the hay-maker is thrown, someone can be heard saying on the video: “You going on the ground now.”
The bus driver, who has been employed by the agency for 22 years, then physically removes the 25-year-old woman and her pink jacket from the bus. She then re-boards the bus, where the two briefly continue scuffling as passengers try to end the melee.
“That’s a [expletive] female,” one passenger shouts.
“I don’t care,” the bus driver responds. “She want to be a man, I’m going to treat you like a man.”
Mary Shaffer, a spokeswoman for the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, said in a statement that an investigation into the Sept. 18 incident has been launched.
“Upon identifying the driver, he was immediately suspended and removed from duty,” the statement read. “His behavior is absolutely unacceptable.”
RTA officials apologized to customers for the incident.
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