Bus Driver Who Followed Rules Was a Hapless Victim : Violence: MTA says he acted properly after fatal crash. But he was brutally beaten as he sobbed at the scene.

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 year ago.

But Thursday night, DeBoe, 57, lay in a hospital in critical condition, still unable to remember why he was there.

On Monday, DeBoe’s bus was struck by a man who apparently rode his minibike through a stop sign and was killed in the collision.

A few moments later, when the mild-mannered DeBoe got out of the bus and set foot on the unforgiving streets at Broadway and 42nd Place, he was attacked by two angry friends of the minibike driver and brutally beaten, police said.

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 grief.

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 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 and remained in custody in lieu of bail. 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,’ ” 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. 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 on 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--were called to the scene from their nearby homes 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 show. 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.

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,’ ” according to a police report. LeGrone 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 to police Tuesday, LeGrone confirmed that he participated in the attack.

He said he had been 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 that in an LAPD interview Wednesday, Cooks denied any involvement in the beating.

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.”

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

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

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

DeBoe, a Fontana man 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 by MTA employees.

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

Within the last four years, he has been struck by a brick thrown through his windshield by someone on the street and sprayed in the face by a passenger who grabbed the bus fire extinguisher, Ruth DeBoe said.

Still, the family 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 Thursday listed him 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.”