NYC Bus Drivers Don't Want Buses Used in Protest

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/04-3

NEW YORK — A union representing New York City bus drivers has filed a lawsuit to stop the police department from making drivers leave their routes to transport Wall Street protesters arrested in their anti-corporate greed campaign to holding facilities.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan by the Transport Workers Union of Greater New York. The lawsuit said police officers on Saturday ordered bus drivers in Brooklyn to drive to the Brooklyn Bridge where police made more than 700 arrests in the Occupy Wall Street campaign.

The lawsuit asks for a court order to stop the police department from using city bus drivers to transport people arrested by police. The city Law Department said in a statement that the NYPD's actions were proper.

[mod mom]

1. Good for them.

[FSogol]

2. Isn't it kind of amazing that the NYCPD doesn't have their own buses?

The DCPD owns several.

[Kolesar]

3. Black Marias eom

[FSogol]

5. Aren't those vans, also called Paddy Wagons? They hold about 10 people.

The Washington's Metro PD has several full size buses, painted with police insignia. In the late 80s they arrested so many people in Georgetown on a typical weekend, they needed the buses to process them all.

[Kolesar]

6. Paddy wagons is the American term, and maybe in Britain, too

Black Marias is more of a term for persecuting the Communists in Spain and Latin America. That's my "Clash lyrics" interpretation.

[PETRUS]

4. K&R nt

[ret5hd]

7. Wouldn't "used against protest" be better phrasing? It seems to me...

that the phrasing used is purposeful misinformation meant to fool the headline readers.