Bus Driver Who Followed Rules Was Victim of Outrage : Violence: MTA says he acted properly after fatal crash. But two angered bystanders beat him anyway.

His friends call Donald DeBoe an easygoing grandfather of 16, a soft-spoken, caring guy who drives an MTA bus for a living. A guy who survived quadruple bypass surgery a few years ago.

But Thursday night, DeBoe, 57, was lying in a hospital in critical condition, still unable to remember why he was there. He got into two accidents on Monday.

The first accident occurred when his bus was struck by a man who apparently rode his minibike through a stop sign and was killed in the collision.

His second accident occurred a few moments later when the mild-mannered DeBoe got out of the bus, set foot on the unforgiving streets at Broadway and 42nd Place and was set upon by angry friends of the minibike driver, who police said beat DeBoe brutally.

So upset had DeBoe been by the traffic accident that, upon getting out of the bus and seeing the condition of the other driver, he began sobbing, hitting a nearby wall with his arm in sorrow.

So outraged were the victim’s friends, witnesses told police, that they never gave DeBoe a chance to explain what had happened.

Looking for the driver who had killed his “homey,” one suspect pushed through a crowd of South-Central Los Angeles spectators, blindsided DeBoe with a punch to the head and then began to rain more punches, witnesses said.

When one woman tried to stop the attack, DeBoe’s assailant looked at her and allegedly spat, “Back off, bitch, or you’re next.”

On Thursday, the two suspects--Bernard LeGrone, 18, and Lawrence Cooks, 22--were arraigned in Los Angeles Municipal Court on charges of assault. They pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing was set for Nov. 27.

DeBoe’s family, meanwhile, stood vigil at County-USC Medical Center.

“He keeps telling me: ‘I don’t know what happened,’ ” said a still shaken Ruth DeBoe, the driver’s wife.

She said her husband broke into tears in the hospital when he learned that the man involved in the collision with his bus--Jafar Broussard, 20--had died.

Rick Hittinger, service operations manager at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Downtown bus yard, said that was typical of DeBoe.

“The first question out of his mouth [in the hospital] was, ‘Please tell me that it wasn’t my fault,’ ” referring to the traffic accident, Hittinger said.

MTA officials maintain that DeBoe was not at fault; no charges have been filed in connection with the crash.

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Assaults on bus drivers are nothing new in Los Angeles, which operates the nation’s most crowded buses. Drivers are often spat on. Overall, 150 assaults on bus drivers have been reported this year, including several stabbings.

Still, the attack on DeBoe stands out.

“As . . . low-key as he is, DeBoe didn’t stand a chance once he stepped off that bus,” said Hugh Cooper, a muscular 48-year-old MTA driver. “We deal with abuse from the public every single day. They just picked on someone they knew they could take out.”

MTA officials said DeBoe did everything he was supposed to do after the collision Monday. Police said Broussard, riding a homemade motorized bike with no brakes, apparently failed to stop while turning onto Broadway from a side street.

After the collision, DeBoe radioed for paramedics and then--in keeping with MTA procedures--got out to check on the man’s condition.

And began to cry.

“He had his left arm over his head, and was hitting the wall with his right [hand],” one witness said in a police report.

It was then, police say, that Cooks and LeGrone--both described by police as gang members and friends of Broussard who live nearby--were called to the scene by other residents.

Cooks, also known by the nickname “Sandman,” was convicted twice in 1994 for selling or possessing crack and was sentenced to a year in County Jail, court records say. The previous year, a jury acquitted him of murder in the 1992 shooting death of a security guard. In court files, he describes himself as a rapper. LeGrone has no criminal record; police said he is unemployed.

After the accident, a witness said LeGrone pushed through the crowd and “began asking what happened to his ‘homey’ and who did this to his ‘homey,’ ” a police report said.

LeGrone then ran onto the bus, then back out, the report said. Seeing DeBoe sobbing against the wall, LeGrone rushed over and “clearly blindsided” the driver with a punch, the report said. Then, police said, Cooks joined the fray. DeBoe tried to shield himself but after numerous blows, he fell to the ground, the witness told police. The attackers ran away, leaving the driver “motionless on the ground in a pool of blood,” the police report said.

In a signed statement he gave Tuesday to police, LeGrone confirmed he participated in the attack.

He said he had been hanging out on a friend’s porch nearby when two other men drove by and said that “Half Dead”--apparently Broussard’s nickname--had been hit by a bus.

“I saw ‘Half Dead’ in the street,” LeGrone said in his statement. “Tears came to my eyes. . . . I hit [DeBoe] with my right hand on the left side of his face. . . . A Mexican guy tried to grab me--so I tried to hit him with my right hand but missed.”

Police said Cooks denied any involvement in the beating during an LAPD interview Wednesday.

Both suspects remained in custody Thursday in lieu of $150,000 bail for Cooks and $55,000 for LeGrone.

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In a written statement to police, LeGrone’s cousin said LeGrone asked her for money the afternoon of the beating “so he could leave the city.” Instead, the cousin said, she and her husband brought him “by force to the police station.”

While acknowledging she was aware that authorities had already offered a $30,000 reward for assistance leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspects, “My husband and I knew the right thing to do,” she said.

Several MTA drivers said Thursday the incident underscores their unbearable working conditions.

“The roaches are crawling up the drivers’ legs,” said Valerie Montgomery, a former bus driver who believes that the transit agency should build protective compartments for drivers. MTA officials say that that idea runs counter to their traditional views that bus drivers are supposed to be customer-friendly.

DeBoe, who has been a bus driver for seven years, was looking forward to undergoing training to be an operator on the Long Beach-to-Los Angeles Blue Line train--regarded as a far safer job among MTA employees.

He had been attacked on his bus route at least twice before, his family said.

Within the last four years, he had been struck by a brick thrown through his windshield by someone on the street and had a passenger grab the bus fire extinguisher and spray him in the face, Ruth DeBoe said.

Still, relatives of the couple, who live in Fontana, said the viciousness of Monday’s attack was stunning.

“He’s very frightened still,” Ruth DeBoe said. “He doesn’t want to be left alone.”

Doctors listed him Thursday in critical condition but improving. His wife said he was conscious and talking but unable to see out of his left eye and having memory problems.

“We want him to stop working [for the MTA] so he and my mom can move to Washington,” said DeBoe’s 28-year-old son, Kevin, who flew in from Tacoma, Wash., to be with his father.

“They need to get out of Los Angeles.”

But such a move is unlikely, Ruth DeBoe said sadly.

“We don’t have enough money,” she said. “That’s why he was driving a bus in the first place. He needed to take care of his family.”