Striking Driver Charged in Greyhound Bus Shooting

A striking Greyhound bus driver was charged Friday with shooting at a Greyhound bus in Farmington, Conn., the first striker to be arrested or charged in connection with shooting incidents that have marred the 15-day-old strike by 9,000 drivers and other Greyhound workers.

Roger D. Cawtra, 44, of Stratford was arrested at his home by state police and charged with reckless endangerment and weapons offenses, authorities said. A judge ordered him held on $100,000 bond. No one was injured in the Monday shooting incident, in which a bullet was fired from a passing car and lodged in the side of the bus.

There have been at least 14 shooting attacks on Greyhound buses, 46 bomb threats and numerous other incidents of vandalism or threats during the strike, Greyhound officials say. The Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Locals have denied responsibility.

Representatives of the company and the union are scheduled to meet face-to-face today in Tucson for the first time since the strike began over terms of a new contract. Wages and job-security provisions are the prime issues.

Early Friday, a shot fired from a passing car hit the windshield of a bus in Phoenix, police said. The glass was not penetrated and no one was injured. The 43 passengers on the bus bound from New York to Los Angeles were put on another bus.

On Thursday night, strikers and employees were forced to evacuate Greyhound’s downtown Los Angeles maintenance yard after a caller phoned in a bomb threat. Bomb squad members found a ticking suitcase in the cargo area of a bus in the yard but later discovered an alarm clock and clothing inside.

Greyhound has won court orders barring violence in more than a dozen cities and reached agreement with the union Thursday to ban picketing and demonstrations at three Greyhound operations in Jacksonville, Fla.

Greyhound, the nation’s largest intercity bus line, has been operating at reduced levels since the strike began, using permanent replacements and union members willing to cross the picket line. The company says 394 union drivers are at work, joining 1,002 permanent replacements. The union says only 94 of its drivers have crossed the line.