Bus Op Recovering After Brutal Assault

Bus Operator Clarence Jackson is home after being hospitalized for a vicious slashing July 3rd aboard his Bx 5 bus at the corner of Westchester Avenue and Southern Boulevard in the Bronx. On board cameras showed a young woman, wearing a white hoodie, standing and waiting by the Operator's seat after passengers exited the bus. OA Division 2 Division Chairman Frank Austin, who visited Jackson in the hospital, says that as the Operator made the stop announcement at around 4pm, with his left arm raised to grasp the intercom, his assailant cut him twice. The first cut required 32 stitches and the second needed 18, he said. Division Chair Austin speculates that this attack could have been a gang initiation, where the assailant wanted to mark the Operator's face. The bus partition on the Bx 5 prevented that. In response to an MTA spokesman's claim that partitions are expensive to install, Austin told Channel 7 news that if it wasn't for the partition, the attack would likely have been fatal. Two days earlier, another Bus Operator was assaulted in lower Manhattan by an assailant who punched her near the FDR Drive and Houston Street, then took her purse.