Real-Life Trauma for Symbol of Violence

Bus driver Donald DeBoe remembers nothing of the beating he suffered a month ago after he accidentally killed a young man who darted into his path on a minibike. But he lives with the debilitating consequences every day.

Although his life-threatening injuries have begun to heal, DeBoe’s psyche remains deeply wounded. The self-reliant Metropolitan Transportation Authority driver, who navigated Los Angeles’ toughest streets, spends his days in his Fontana home, depressed and fearful.

DeBoe can’t remember numbers, not even his own street address or phone number, because his brain was bruised so badly by the thugs who jumped him after the accident.

Crowds scare him. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he awakens to the sounds of sirens and helicopters that do not exist. All his wife, Ruth, can do is comfort him.

“I never used to fear anything,” said the visibly bruised DeBoe. “Now I’m a scaredy-cat. Everyone came to me if they were scared. Now I go to them.”

And on top of all this, he said he is still mourning the death of the young man whom he killed at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street and whose two vengeful friends administered the beating.

“It wasn’t even partially my fault,” he said. “I don’t even hunt or shoot animals, and here I’ve killed a person.”

In today’s violent world, it’s impossible to count the number of victims of such criminal assaults. All are going through their private hells, the ordeal of pain, recovery, depression, arduous therapy. Making it worse in many cases is the victims’ nagging worry over whether their bodies will recover and their psychological underpinnings will be restored.

Donald “Bud” DeBoe is like all these victims, except for one point: As an MTA bus driver, one of the hardy crew entrusted with one of the Southland’s most important and valuable jobs, he became a high-profile victim, selected by the media as a symbol of the violence that has shattered the lives of many others.

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DeBoe is a modest symbol, a self-effacing man who speaks quietly and briefly, without the heart-rending phrases the media love from their crime victims. On Tuesday morning, he sat in a comfortable chair in front of the television set in his ranch-style tract home. His wife was on a couch, playing with one of their 17 grandchildren, 4-month-old Aaron.

“I don’t even remember leaving for work,” DeBoe said of the day of his beating. “It just hasn’t come back to me yet. My psychiatrist said it will probably be a while before anything comes back. I remember doing some painting, then I left for work, and that’s it. I woke up in the hospital and wondered why I was there.”

His wife was visiting relatives in Oklahoma when she was told of the assault. Landing in Los Angeles, she was taken to County-USC Medical Center, where DeBoe was in intensive care. The family, watching the hospital television, saw TV reporters near their home, asking neighbors about DeBoe.

It was not the first time DeBoe had been attacked since he began driving a bus in 1986. He applied for the job after being laid off as an auto dealer parts manager.

It was dangerous from the beginning, he said.

“There are a lot of regular people, but you get a lot of gangs, a lot of bums, on the bus,” he said. “You get an awful lot of people who want to ride free. And if you don’t let them ride free they get belligerent and you don’t know what happens. And when you drive a bus through town, you get a lot of people trying to steal your transfers and they may smack you. It’s not a safe job.”

DeBoe has been robbed twice, once at 1st Street and Broadway in the heart of downtown and another time in Eagle Rock. He’s also been beaten twice, once at the same spot on Broadway where he was robbed.

Still, he wasn’t scared off, as many of us would be. He accompanied frightened female bus drivers on dangerous routes simply because “they’d request it.”

Now, he said, his psychiatrist says it would be good for him to ride the bus to fight the fear. “Not yet,” said DeBoe.

Often, assault appears to be based on a special hate--straight against gay, man against woman, race against race. DeBoe, who was white, was beaten by two African Americans. But, unlike many such victims, DeBoe’s attitude is different and is probably hard for many people to understand--an attitude shaped by his own life.

One of his sons-in-law is black. So is a grandchild and a brother-in-law. “My brother-in-law’s black friends called when it [the attack] happened,” said Ruth DeBoe. “They were furious.”

Another son-in-law is Latino. So are five of their grandchildren. “I’m the least racist person there is,” said DeBoe. “When we have a holiday at the house, it’s multiracial.”

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DeBoe would like to return to the MTA as a bus driver and eventually as a subway train operator. But he’ll have to work hard to get there.

This is true for most of the victims. Recovery and rehabilitation are the hardest parts of the job. For them, the aftermath of the crime continues.