

Chris Herhalt, CP24.com





A TTC bus operator was caught on camera appearing to assault a passenger and smacking his phone out of his hands in apparent dispute over whether the passenger paid his fare.

A passenger on the bus told CP24 he was on the 506 heading east on College Street at 5:10 a.m. Saturday when four passengers boarded.

The driver of the bus immediately started yelling at a young man wearing headphones that he had not paid the entirety of his fare.

Video submitted to CP24 by the same passenger shows the bus driver walking to the rear of the bus and repeatedly saying “You’ve got to pay the rest of your fare.”

“Hello, hello, hello, hello,” the operator continues “Are you going to pay the rest of your fare?”

Then the operator appears to smack the phone out of the passenger’s hands and pin him up to the inside wall of the bus.

The operator is seen walking back to the front of the bus while the passenger walks to retrieve his phone, which had slid to the rear doors.

The passenger who recorded the encounter said he reported the incident to police, but had not yet been contacted as of 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The TTC says it takes incidents of this nature “very, very seriously” and is conducting its own internal probe into the matter.