Driving in fear
JUTC drivers shot, spat on and pepper-sprayed daily
Published:Sunday | November 14, 2021 | 12:09 AMCorey Robinson - Senior Staff Reporter
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Each stranger Joseph Donaldson passes in public could be his brother’s killer. That’s just how he feels two years after the tragic murder of Mikkel Donaldson, a Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) driver who was gunned down while on night duties...
Each stranger Joseph Donaldson passes in public could be his brother’s killer. That’s just how he feels two years after the tragic murder of Mikkel Donaldson, a Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) driver who was gunned down while on night duties.
Police never caught the killer. Chances are the perpetrator may already be dead from a life of crime. An eye for an eye, Joseph reasons. Though this means the killer will never get to answer the question scorching inside him since that fateful night of September 23, 2019: why Mikkel?
Countless counselling sessions as well as time have brought some closure to his brother’s death, but with recent news of five JUTC buses being stoned, causing injury to three passengers last week, the anxiety of Mikkel’s murder rushes back in rapids.
So, too, does his anger for the killer, who reportedly was out for any JUTC driver in reprisal for the death of taxi operator Akeeno Britton. Britton was reportedly stabbed to death by another JUTC bus operator hours before on that fateful day on Washington Boulevard. JUTC driver Oral Clarke was later charged for Britton’s murder.
“I’m just coming back from it (brother’s death) now, you understand. I mean, getting back on my feet. Mentally. Night-time I can’t sleep,” reflected the younger brother. “It affects my old lady up to this day. His 13-year-old daughter, she is on and off, more time she breaks down and we try talking to her.”
Joseph added, “Is me and him par straight thru. Normally anywhere he is going is me and him. If he meets a new girl, we sit down talk and we cook. That is why it was so shocking, because if he and a man did have something him not hiding, he would have told me. He was a good brother.”
Joseph said Mikkel, also called ‘Biggs’, had been working for eight years before his death on Oxford Road in St Andrew. Standing at the bus door at approximately 11 o’clock that night, Mikkel was peppered with bullets as a mechanic he had transported to fix another bus worked nearby.
HAZARDS OF THE JOB
Mikkel never expressed fear in doing his job, Joseph shared with The Sunday Gleaner, but two of the JUTC drivers involved in last week’s bus-stoning incidents said it is an ever-looming part of their work.
“Even if me fearful I try nuh show it,” quipped Rowan Robinson, his lively demeanour now a sharp contrast to a frightful night last Tuesday when a stone was hurled into the windshield of the 17A he operated at the intersection of Mahoe Drive and Hagley Park Road in St Andrew.
Robinson said he has been pepper-sprayed, spat on, bitten, and had guns jammed into his face on at least three occasions by robbers in his 21-year-old career. A stoned windshield, however, was new territory, he admitted. Sill, the impact was jolting.
“I only hear ‘kashai’ and when I look up, my face full a splinter – all about. I get one little bruise right here, but me not even paying that no mind,” he noted, pointing to his cheek. “But you know we not going stop to take no check, cause we don’t know if a robbery or anything. Nobody didn’t get any injury, so I drive go Half-Way Tree.”
About 60 persons were inside the bus, he stated, recalling the initial shock and stunned silence from passengers, similar to a past occurrence years ago when a gunman robbed a conductress at the rear of the bus before walking up to him with weapon brandished and an order to stop and open the door.
The gunman jumped off on Slipe Road, said Robinson, recounting two other armed robberies, one near Christian Gardens in Portmore, St Catherine.
“We carry criminals on a daily basis and don’t even know. You just don’t know who is looking out to target these buses,” said another bus driver. He asked not to be identified but noted that his vehicle was also damaged on Hagley Park Road last week.
INCREASED ATTACKS
“COVID has slowed down a lot of things for these people, and I think the buses that are carrying money are going to get targeted. Christmas is coming up,” said the JUTC driver, noting that the stone-throwing and robberies are just the start of the abuse and mental trauma faced by drivers on a daily basis. This is partly because of JUTC’s negative stigma in some quarters, he said.
“A lot of people don’t know how the buses drive and when you try to manoeuvre the buses, you have people who may have a licensed or an illegal firearm and because they see you pulling out of a stop and they don’t want to stop, they pull a weapon on you, and this is an everyday thing,” he explained.
According to the JUTC, it has experienced 69 stone-throwing incidents since the start of the year in which its buses were damaged. 29 incidents took place in the Three Miles area in St Andrew.
The state-owned bus company said in recent weeks its buses have come under increased attacks by vandals. 19 incidents occurred last month.
From January 2018 to October 2021, the company said, there have been 311 incidents of vandalism. 2018 is the highest on record with 99 incidents reported, followed by 2019 with 95 incidents. In 2020, the JUTC received reports of 63 cases.
The police said they have intensified operations to clamp down on the incidents that have resulted in millions of dollars in damage to state-owned properties.