RTD Driver Freed, Drug Test Awaited in Incident

An RTD bus driver suspected of deliberately ramming his bus into a car while driving under the influence of drugs was released from County Jail on Monday pending further investigation of the incident.

Michael Pierre Mitchell, 33, was arrested Saturday by Sierra Madre police on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and being under the influence of a controlled substance. Police said the bus driver allegedly tailgated a car containing a 27-year-old woman and her three children, then intentionally slammed into it. There were no injuries.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jim Simpson said Monday that he would decide whether to press charges against Mitchell, who has been suspended without pay, after he receives the results of a urinalysis. Those results are expected within a week.

‘Hyper, Unresponsive’

Simpson, reading from a police report of the incident, said Mitchell was “very, very talkative, hyper and unresponsive” when arrested on Saturday afternoon.

Mitchell, who lives in Claremont, has had three moving violations in the past two years, according to Department of Motor Vehicle records. In 1984, he was cited for speeding and for making an improper left turn. Both violations occurred while he was driving an RTD bus, DMV records show. In 1985, he was ticketed for speeding while driving his own car.

Attempts to reach Mitchell on Monday by telephone were unsuccessful. RTD spokesman Steve Parks said Monday that he could not comment on Mitchell’s driving record, nor could he discuss whether any disciplinary action had ever been taken against the driver.

RTD officials are conducting their own investigation of the incident, Parks said, and will also review the drug testing results.

‘Minor Traffic Accident’

“If it looks like the evidence warrants disciplinary action,” Parks said, “we will schedule a formal review. There was a fairly minor traffic accident. He hit a car with a woman and three children it. For now, he is suspended without pay.”

According to a witness, police said, Mitchell’s bus, which carried one passenger, tailgated the woman’s car for several blocks on Sierra Madre Boulevard. Near the intersection of Sunnyside Avenue, the bus crossed the center divider and then swerved back, appearing to intentionally strike the driver’s side of the car, police said.

Sgt. Gerald Skinner said he could not disclose the names of the woman driver or the witness. But both, he said, told police that there was no apparent reason for the alleged attack.

Saturday’s accident is the latest in a controversial series of RTD bus crashes in which nearly 120 people have been injured since March 14. The most serious occurred on July 31, when rookie driver Shirley Jean Riojas overturned her RTD bus on the Hollywood Freeway, injuring 27 people.

Riojas, 26, who had been hired six weeks before the crash, was fired Friday. Her firing brings to three the number of district drivers who have been dismissed in recent months after they reportedly tested positive for drug use following bus accidents.

The crashes prompted Supervisor Kenneth Hahn to call an emergency meeting last week with RTD General Manager John Dyer and Earl Clark, the head of United Transportation Union, which represents the district’s nearly 5,000 drivers.

Following that meeting, Clark and Dyer both vowed to meet with RTD drivers to discuss the string of crashes. RTD officials have also agreed to ask an independent panel of experts to study the district’s safety and training policies and to make recommendations for improvement.

But district spokesman Parks said Monday that too much has been made of the accidents. “If a bus tips over on the freeway, we’re going to get a lot of attention. But a lot of these accidents have been minor and a lot of it has been blown out of proportion.”