A Cleveland bus driver has been suspended after a horrifying video surfaced online showing him brutally punching an unruly female passenger aboard his vehicle.
The footage, which was posted on WorldstarHipHop.com and on YouTube, shows the unidentified woman exchange a barrage of insults and obscenities with the driver.
After she lunges towards the driver and hits him as he is behind the wheel of the moving vehicle, he pulls over the bus and approaches her, with a passenger filming their confrontation on a phone.
The man, who reveals during his interaction with the woman that he is a grandfather, immediately pulls back his fist and smacks her under her chin with such a force that she falls backwards.
He grabs the woman and her coat and throws them off the bus before she re-boards and begins scuffling with him.
The footage, believed to have been filmed on September 18, shows his hands around her neck and him yanking her head back by her hair as she screams.
The woman yells that he is going to jail and attempts to punch him again.
Eventually, after a minute and a half of filming, the melee comes to an end when passengers get between the bus driver and the woman.
‘That’s a [expletive] female,’ one passenger yells at the bus driver.‘I don’t care,’ he responds. ‘She want to be a man, I’m going to treat you like a man.’
The footage taken aboard the 2802 bus in Cleveland, Ohio begins when the confrontation is already underway, leaving it unclear what sparked the outburst.
During their escalating verbal confrontation, the woman threatens the bus driver with violence.
‘I’ll bring my granddaughter up here and she’ll whoop your ass,’ he responds from behind the wheel.‘Okay, bring her, bring her nanny up here too and I’ll beat her ass too,’ she answers.‘Looks like somebody gonna slice your face up,’ he says, to laughter from other passengers.
After she approaches him and hits him, the passengers begin screaming, with the driver adding: ‘You going to jail now, you going to jail now’ before landing his own punch in response.
Mary Shaffer, a spokeswoman for the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, told Fox News that they became aware of the video this week and an investigation has been launched.
‘Upon identifying the driver, he was immediately suspended and removed from duty,’ a statement read. ‘His behavior is absolutely unacceptable.’
It added that Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority officials apologizes to customers for the violent incident.
