Bus Attack A Hate Crime Or Provoked By Victim?
Friday, December 07, 2007
WBAL Radio and The Associated Press
Maryland Transit Administration Police are investigating Tuesday's attack aboard a Baltimore bus as a hate crime.
Twenty-six-year-old Sarah Kreager suffered broken facial bones and other injuries after she was punched, kicked and dragged off the bus by nine middle school students. A man with Kreager, Troy Ellis, was also beaten.
Kreager and Ellis are white and the students are black.
Transit police say they have found no evidence that the attack was provoked. They continue to examine video from a surveillance camera on the bus.
But some City middle school students are disputing the police version of this week's assault of a woman on an MTA bus.
The Examiner is reporting that some Poole Middle School students who were on the Number 27 bus at around 3 on Tuesday say the 26-year-old woman started the fight and used the "N" word.
The students say the woman and her boyfriend started the fight that left the woman with broken bones in her left eye socket and other injuries to her head.
One of students who rides that bus says the woman used the "N" word and punched one of the students riding the bus.
But that flies in the face of what the woman told MTA police.
The students are charged with aggravated assault and destruction of property. Police say the teens could face additional charges. Police have identified two additional victims, a third passenger and the bus driver.
