MTA leaders and union representatives are in shock after a judge freed a man who allegedly strangled an MTA driver. Shevaughn Legall, 25, left Brooklyn Criminal Court last Wednesday with his legal aid attorney after being accused of strangling the MTA bus driver following a collision in Brooklyn.
The incident took place on Tuesday in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where a B26 bus was involved in a sideswipe collision with Legall’s car.
Prosecutors claim that Legall stormed onto the bus, broke through the Plexiglas partition, and grabbed the 68-year-old bus driver by the throat in an instant. The driver was not seriously injured. However, the violent encounter was captured by the bus’s onboard camera, according to MTA officials.
RELATED STORIES
Legall was arrested at the scene and arraigned the next day.
He faced charges of second-degree assault and strangulation but was granted supervised release despite the prosecutor’s objections regarding the violent crime.
Nora Wallace, his legal aid attorney, argued to the judge, “There is no serious physical injury alleged here. That’s not the basis of the felony assault and looking at the language of the statute for the alleged strangulation, there is no allegation of stupor or a loss of consciousness.”
“I ask that Your Honor consider that when looking at the factors which strongly weigh in favor of his release on his own recognizance,” she said, according to WABC.
MTA leaders and union heads assert this reflects yet another example of the dangers that MTA workers face on a daily basis.
Frank Annicaro, Senior Vice President of MTA Bus Company, remarked to WABC, “We had a bus operator yesterday who was brutally attacked, who was suffocated while trying to do his job. The criminal justice system let us down.”
“There was no conversation. There was no argument ahead of time, busted through the door, compromised the bus, entered the bus operator compartment and proceeded to choke him and then terrorize the passengers. The passengers were on board, were terrorized. They all ran in fear.”
Annicaro expressed frustration, “The legislation is there. The D.A. takes the steps in order to hold this person off the street. And now the judge just let him walk. I don’t understand this.”
Transport Workers Union Vice President J. P. Patafio also stated, “You spit at an operator, you lay a finger on an operator, you threaten an operator with bodily harm? That is very serious and we take it with the utmost seriousness.”
Though the judge stated that he considered Legall’s circumstances as a single parent with a year-old child, a full-time job, and no prior arrests, critics argue that this reflects a broken criminal justice system.
