Gunman Is Shot in Scuffle After He Tries to Hijack Bus

An armed passenger tried to hijack a Greyhound bus heading to Atlantic City casinos Sunday but was shot and critically wounded by the driver after they tumbled from the moving bus, an official said.

Another of the 43 passengers brought the slowly moving bus to a stop, said Bill Kula, a Greyhound Lines Inc. spokesman in Dallas.

The bus was on the Garden State Parkway headed from New York City to Atlantic City when a passenger pulled a handgun and announced he was hijacking the bus to New York City’s Brooklyn borough, Kula said.

The gunman ordered another passenger to collect money and identifications from others, the spokesman said. As the gunman tried to get the card of driver Armando Helliger, 29, the driver hit the brakes, hoping the man would fall and drop the gun, Kula said.

The gunman fell into the bus stairwell, and Helliger and a passenger tried to wrestle the pistol away from him, Kula said. As the bus traveled slowly in the right-hand lane, Helliger and the gunman fell from the bus and the driver seized the weapon.

The gunman, who had been yelling he was going to kill the driver and the passengers if he got control of the gun, broke loose and started running, the spokesman said. The driver shot him in the back.

State Trooper John L. Sullivan said the gunman, whose name was not immediately released, was hospitalized in critical condition and faces charges of kidnaping, armed robbery and aggravated assault.