3rd Man Dies After Terror on Seattle Bus

The battered twin hulks of a city bus have been hauled away and traffic on the busy Aurora Bridge was flowing, but residents were still in shock Saturday, a day after a man opened fire in a downtown bus, pumping four shots into the driver and causing the bus and its 34 passengers to plunge off the bridge and bounce off the roof of an apartment house.

The bus driver and a passenger died of gunshot wounds Friday in what police suspect is a murder-suicide. Another man, 69-year-old Herman Leibelt, died of crash-related injuries Saturday.

Across Seattle, and especially for those who rushed to give aid, the bloody scene on a sunny holiday afternoon is being called a horrific action-movie come to life.

The 20-year-veteran bus driver was shot four times in the abdomen. His two-part articulated bus swerved across oncoming traffic lanes, hit a van, clipped a light pole, crashed through two guardrails and plunged 50 feet.

The bus broke apart in midair, and the 30-foot rear section landed between two towering pine trees.

The front section rebounded off the roof of an apartment house then slid down the side of the two-story building, shearing off protruding porches and stairs. The bus landed upright on its shredded tires.

The bus fell at the north end of the four-lane Aurora Bridge, which is a landmark in the city’s Fremont neighborhood, a popular shopping and sightseeing area that is one of Seattle’s busiest thoroughfares.

Thirty-two passengers were injured, and 19 remained hospitalized Saturday. No one on the ground was hurt.

The bus driver, Mark F. McLaughlin, was thrown through the windshield and landed on the apartment roof. McLaughlin, 44, was the divorced father of two teenage boys and was to be married this spring. Saturday was to be the first day of his vacation.

Seattle police spokeswoman Christie-Lynn Bonner said the man who died of a gunshot wound to the head is suspected of shooting McLaughlin. His name was not released. A gun was found on the his body, and another gun was found at the crash site, officials said.

Officials are still unsure what caused the shooting. According to witnesses, the gunman was a large man who was sitting at the front of the bus across from the driver. They said there was no altercation between the two men before the shooting.

A Seattle television station reported Saturday night that the alleged gunman, whom they identified as Silas Cool, graduated from high school in New Jersey and had been living near the University of Washington. According to the report, the 43-year-old unemployed man was quiet, had few friends and had been suffering from chronic back pain since 1979.

For passengers on the bus, the “pop, pop” of gunfire was the only warning they had before the driver lost control and the bus began to veer into oncoming traffic.

Regina King, 28, remembers being asleep and waking up to hear another passenger yell, “Oh, my God!”

As the bus sped out of control to the edge of the bridge, King thought the vehicle would surely plunge in the ship canal at the head of Lake Union.

“I was hollering, ‘Jesus!’ ” she said. “My whole life just flashed in front of me. I’m thinking, ‘I’m waiting for us to hit the water.’ I just knew we were all dead.”

King was in satisfactory condition at Harborview Medical Center with leg and rib injuries.

Thirteen-year-old Lacy Olsen was traveling downtown to have an eyebrow pierced and was sitting close to the front of the bus.

“I saw two flashes and heard a loud pop-pop,” she told the Seattle Times. “I saw the bus driver and his blood.”

Another passenger, Laethan Wene, 24, thought to himself, “My God, it’s going to be like an airplane crash.” Wene was unhurt.

Residents who live near Aurora Bridge are accustomed to traffic noise. But Friday’s accident caught them off guard.

Lya Badgley, 41, was sitting at her kitchen table trying to soothe her bawling 11-month-old daughter.

She said she felt a tremendous vibration, then looked out the window of the apartment in the bustling neighborhood. She was the first person among scores to call 911.

“I looked outside and up,’ she said. “I saw a spray of concrete. It looked like water coming down. Right behind that came the bus. I didn’t realize it was an articulated bus. I was calling 911 before both pieces hit ground.”

The front portion of the bus landed 50 feet from her front door. Badgley’s husband joined a handful of neighbors who went from being witnesses to rescuers in an instant. Those first on the scene were pelted with debris from the breached bridge. They slipped around in leaking fuel.

“There was falling debris, and I looked up and saw the broken fence and the bridge,” said Sasha Babic, 33. “I ran to the bus, and I didn’t hear anything. People were whispering for help.”

Babic said he and two other men concentrated on prying open the bus’s front door, where an elderly man’s head was wedged. Several passengers were stacked in the bus stairwell, apparently thrown there during the headfirst plunge.

“We were working to open the door, and there was a woman there, about 30 years old, whispering for help. ‘Help me, help me,’ she kept saying,” Babic said. “A man’s voice from inside called out, ‘It’s OK, sweetheart.’ I don’t know if he even knew her.”

Someone got a crowbar, and a group of witnesses began to pull out passengers. Others ran to their houses and brought back blankets.

One man, Byron Juliano, was repairing a telephone line in the area and rushed to the scene. He said he came upon a teenage girl sitting on a curb, bloodied. Dazed, she looked up at him and asked him to call her parents. He scribbled the number on the back of a $10 bill and ran to make the call.

Another man said he came upon a young boy who, while hurt, kept remarking that his portable CD player had continued to function for the duration of the fall.

Badgley said she was standing with her infant daughter in her arms, horrified at the scene unfolding before her but also heartened by the compassion of those who rushed to help in the early moments.

“People had started laying victims on the street and were trying to comfort them,” she said. “I saw people holding hands and cradling heads.

“Total strangers. I got a shirt for a guy. Someone called for rope. I got rope. It was eerily silent, really. The sun had come out.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.