PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – Bus drivers are coming together to voice their safety concerns after a HART bus driver was murdered last weekend.
Thomas Dunn was killed Saturday afternoon.
PSTA bus driver Kevin Sablan said he was threatened while driving his bus Monday – just two days after Dunn’s murder.
“It was becoming such a disruption to where he was cussing out everybody on the bus. Finally, I jumped in and I said ‘Hey if you don’t stop, you’re getting off the bus.'” Sablan said. “Went back and forth a little bit. (The) guy said he was going to stop, he didn’t. He tells me, ‘You seen what happened to that driver in Tampa.’ And I’m like are you threatening me? What are you getting at?”
Bus drivers want better safety measures, just like Dunn did back in December.
“Trying to get something to protect us. We’re afraid. We’re very afraid – coming to do our job – that we don’t have any protection whatsoever,” driver Leon Smiley said.
They’re demanding enclosures, separating them from the public. What they have now is not enough, according to Service Employee International Union Rep April Murphy.
“They’re worthless. The cameras are worthless. They show who killed you, but they don’t help the victim,” she said.
“We’ve been saying this for a while. We’ve been asking for the barrier enclosure for a while now,” Sablan said. “And this situation that happened to the HART driver, this was the worst-case scenario. This is what we’ve been warning them about and it finally happened.”
There is a PSTA board meeting next Wednesday at 9 a.m. Bus drivers from all over plan to attend.
HART has established two financial support funds for Dunn’s family.
Donations for the family fund can be made at any Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union branch. You can also mail donations to:
Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union
P.O. Box 7492
Tampa, FL
Donations to the family fund should include the following:
Name of Fund: The Thomas Dunn Memorial Fund
Memorial ID #: 563719
In addition to the family fund, HART has also created the Thomas Dunn Memorial Scholarship for the children of Mr. Dunn for educational scholarships. Donations to the Thomas Dunn Memorial Scholarship Fund can be made online.
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