An irate MTA bus driver stabbed a passenger after a verbal dispute, cops told the Daily News Saturday.
MTA bus driver Ian Bascombe, 58, was arrested and charged around 12:30 p.m. following a clash with Quentin Branch, 33, Friday aboard a southbound B41 bus at Foster and Flatbush Aves. in Flatbush. According to police, Bascombe got into a heated argument with the passenger that ended with Bascombe pulling out a knife and stabbing the victim in the head and left leg.
Frank Annicaro, MTA NYC Transit senior vice president of buses, slammed the incident as “not acceptable.”
“Violence on buses puts New Yorkers at risk and is not acceptable,” Annicaro said. “Pending internal review, this bus operator is being withheld from service.”
Branch was transported to Kings County Hospital, where he was in stable condition.
Bascombe, who had just reached 20 years of service with the MTA on Friday, was charged with two counts of assault, plus criminal possession of a weapon, the MTA and police said.
Branch, who lives just blocks away from the scene of the bus clash, was also arrested and charged with assault and harassment.
The incident comes just four days after an MTA cleaner, with 15 months on the job, was arrested after he allegedly cut a man at the Atlantic Ave.-Barclays Center subway station. Police said the MTA worker, who was on duty, got into an altercation with a 47-year-old man who had been sleeping on a bench on the D train platform, eventually cutting the man’s forehead with a knife. As of now, the Brooklyn district attorney is not prosecuting the cleaner because the victim cannot be found.
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