RTD Driver Held in Sexual Assaults : Crime: He is accused of raping one passenger aboard his bus and attempting to attack another.

An RTD bus driver accused of raping one female passenger and attempting to rape a second aboard his bus in separate incidents last month was arrested by Los Angeles police on Monday.

Darryl Darnell Brooks, 41, was taken into custody without incident at his Los Angeles home, Detective Kyle Tolliver said.

In both cases, Tolliver said, Brooks waited until the bus was empty before pulling a passenger to the back of the vehicle and attacking her. The incidents occurred on RTD Line 81, along Figueroa Street, in Southeast Los Angeles and in Eagle Rock.

Brooks originally was arrested Oct. 30 and suspended from his job. But he was released pending further investigation, police said.

After interviewing the two passengers, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sindee Kerker filed charges last Wednesday and issued an arrest warrant.

“I would not have filed this case if I didn’t believe they were credible and that the attacks did occur,” Kerker said. “He seems to pick vulnerable victims, young victims who might be afraid to tell anybody about it.”

RTD spokesman Anthony Greno said attacks on passengers by drivers or by other passengers are uncommon. The transit police force, numbering almost 200 sworn officers, is responsible for security aboard buses.

An average of more than 1.3 million passengers take RTD buses every weekday. During the 1990-91 fiscal year, transit police officers investigated three murders, 307 assaults and 122 robberies that occurred in or near RTD buses, according to a report given recently to RTD directors. No separate figures for sexual attacks or crimes committed by bus drivers were available Monday, Greno said.

With up to 2,500 buses on the road during peak hours, there are not enough officers available to provide security on each vehicle at all times, he said.

Brooks, who was being held in lieu of $60,000 bail, was expected to be arraigned today in Compton Municipal Court.

Greno said Brooks was hired in April, 1984, and until recently was based in Carson and drove the Figueroa route. Greno confirmed that Brooks has been suspended, but he said RTD officials could say nothing further about the driver or the rape allegations.

Tolliver said a 17-year-old South Los Angeles girl told authorities she was walking near Normandie Avenue and Figueroa Street on Oct. 18 when Brooks offered her a ride. He was returning the bus, marked “Out of Service” to a yard at the end of his shift, the investigator said.

The girl told police that Brooks stopped the bus about 10:15 a.m. on an isolated overpass near Imperial Highway and Figueroa Street and raped her.

The second passenger, 23, told police she boarded Brooks’ bus near her home in Southeast Los Angeles on Oct. 29 to go to a morning job interview in an unfamiliar neighborhood on North Figueroa. The bus driver promised to tell her when they reached her stop, but he failed to do so, the woman told police.

When all other passengers had left and the bus had reached the end of its route, near Eagledale Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock, the driver told the woman he had kept her on the bus “because he wanted the company,” Tolliver said.

The driver began to assault the woman, but was interrupted when a would-be passenger banged on the bus door, seeking information about the route, the investigator said.

Tolliver said Brooks returned to his driver’s seat when the new passenger boarded the bus. She said the woman wrote down the bus number and the driver’s identification number, then reported the incident to police.

The detective said she was already investigating the first report about Brooks when the second complaint was made, triggering the driver’s initial arrest.