A Trip to the Land of the Absurd, for Bus Driver and Passenger, Alike

There was Horatius at the bridge, preventing the Etruscans from sacking Rome.

There was an anonymous Chinese student standing in front of a line of People’s Liberation Army tanks to keep them from advancing on Tian An Men Square.

Then there was Malcolm James Parker, 38, standing in front of San Diego Transit bus No. 923 to keep it from leaving the stop at 5400 Grape St. in Oak Park.

Parker vowed not to move until driver Arthur Aguilera Pino called a transit supervisor to the scene so Parker could make a formal complaint about Pino.

About Pino arriving early all the time and leaving people stranded downtown after work. About Pino repeatedly refusing to stop when people pull the overhead cord. About Pino being a smart aleck.

Parker had been riding Pino’s bus home from work when he decided he couldn’t take it anymore.

After a shouting match, he got off the bus and declared that the only way Pino could continue his route was to run him over.

“This time, he’d gone too far. He was just blatantly showing disrespect for me and other people,” Parker said, in soft tones that retain a touch of Louisiana.

Pino, 37, a driver for 12 years, has a different slant on what happened that early evening of Aug. 21.

“Mr. Parker, since a month before, had an attitude,” Pino said calmly. “I saw him as a belligerent man.”

For upward of 40 minutes, Parker stood in front of Pino’s bus. Still, Pino refused to call a supervisor.

“He sat there for a while with the engine running,” Parker said. “Then he cut the engine off and I sat there on the bumper. I turned around and he was reading the newspaper. I was just smoking mad.”

What happened next is still under dispute.

Somehow the outside rear-view mirror on the driver’s side got busted. Pino says Parker broke it and said, “Now you have to call a supervisor.” Parker says Pino broke it so that he could call the cops.

Based on Pino’s word, police cited Parker for misdemeanor malicious vandalism. However, several passengers told police that Pino had missed stops.

The prosecutor from the city attorney’s office later offered to reduce the charge to disturbing the peace, a less serious offense, although he insisted that Parker pay a $330 fine and the $39.03 replacement cost for the mirror.

Parker, a traffic investigator for the city Department of Engineering and Development, refused to plead guilty: “It really turned into a matter of principle.”

He said he wanted to set an example for his three children about fighting for principle and not bowing to unreasonable authority.

His journey through the legal system required him to use eight days of vacation time for the arraignment, pretrial hearing, preliminary hearing and, earlier this month, the trial itself. His legal bill will probably be several hundred dollars.

At trial, Parker and Pino told their conflicting stories. Two passengers testified they didn’t see who broke the mirror; one said she thought Parker broke it, but only accidentally.

Defense attorney Cheryl Landi told jurors that riding Pino’s bus “was like having Attila the Hun driving your bus. You’re totally at his mercy.”

Pino’s personnel record shows a number of passenger complaints, scoldings from supervisors, informal counseling sessions and a formal reprimand for having two “preventable” accidents in one year.

The jury deliberated for five hours before finding Parker innocent. “We decided the transit district should never have pressed the case,” said one juror.

Not so, said the prosecutor, Deputy City Atty. Phil Pattee. The issue, he said, was not Pino’s driving record:

“A $39.03 mirror may seem piddling to you, but vandalism, whether it’s a dime or $1 million, is illegal.”

Pino, who was transferred to a new route even before the trial, says now he wishes he hadn’t yelled at Parker.

Parker feels tired but vindicated.

“I was nervous but not scared,” he said. “I really believed that justice would be done.”

One Man’s Castle . . .

Prominent San Diego architect Rob Wellington Quigley is designing a home for movie director Oliver Stone in Colorado.

Recently, Sylvester Stallone and his entourage arrived Rambo-like in two helicopters to inspect the construction. Stallone looked the project over and left with a terse critique:

“Too small. Not Hollywood enough.”

Which Quigley took as a compliment, kind of.