This is not your typical commuter nightmare.

Passengers spent nearly a half-hour Thursday night locked inside the Hamilton to Toronto GO bus, parked on the Gardiner Expressway with an alleged murderer, as various police forces tried to figure out what to do.

Needless to say, passengers were not pleased.

“My question is: Why were we locked in there with him for almost 25 minutes without being told anything?” Alexander Ramirez, one of the GO riders, told the Star.

“Because someone who realizes it’s game over and they’re stuck in there and they’ve got nothing to lose, that could very easily turn into a hostage situation or worse.”

Durham Regional Police confirmed on Friday that the man was 53-year-old Joseph Scott Young, charged with second-degree murder in the vicious January beating of 19-year-old Tehganni Lewis at an Oshawa rooming house. Young remains in custody.

Few details have been disclosed about Lewis’s death. He succumbed to his injuries in hospital a week after the beating, according to police. They did not say at the time if a weapon was used or what may have led to the attack.

Trying to get answers about Thursday’s operation, as well as the takedown itself, could easily be described in one word: confusing.

Metrolinx said it was not notified ahead of time that police were pursuing Young on one of its buses. Spokeswoman Anne Marie Aikins said they found out about the incident when another bus operator drove past the stopped bus.

The agency initially said the bus had been pulled over by police, but as Metrolinx officials gathered more information on Friday, they confirmed the driver made the decision at around 11 p.m. to pull over on the Gardiner Expressway, just east of Highway 427, when he noticed police following him.

Passengers were left to wonder about the police presence — and the identity of the man who tried to open the bus door and then smoked inside.

Officers from Hamilton, the OPP and Toronto gathered outside discussing what to do, until Durham officers showed up and boarded the bus to arrest Young without incident.

On Friday morning, it was unclear which police force would actually be commenting on the case. Durham police at first refused to comment, saying their officers had not been at the scene, though it later became clear they were the ones who boarded the bus and made the arrest.

They also would not reveal the man’s name at first, saying he had not been charged, though passengers said they heard officers tell him he was being arrested for second-degree murder. Police would only say that he was arrested on an assault warrant and was a person of interest in a homicide.

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Young’s name was disclosed Friday afternoon after being formally charged.

“There were around 20 passengers in total. We were not notified about anything,” Ramirez told the Star in an email.

Young attempted to leave the bus, but the door was locked, Ramirez said. He then lit a cigarette, much to the displeasure of nearby passengers, Ramirez said in a subsequent interview.

“Some of the passengers said, ‘You can’t smoke in here; please don’t smoke,’ and his response was very disgruntled. . . He said, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, it’s over.’ Something along those lines.”

Eventually, about eight officers boarded the bus and arrested Young.

“When (the officers) came in they said, ‘You’re arrested for second-degree murder,’ ” Ramirez said. “What is the strategy, what is the justification of having us locked in there?”

He said he has written to OPP management demanding answers.

“This incident is the first time in my life where I genuinely felt like I was being held as collateral damage,” Ramirez wrote in his letter, obtained by the Star.

A spokesman for the OPP’s highway safety division said there was no concern for public safety and that Young was kept on the bus while police gathered outside with the bus driver because it was “safe and secure.”

“It just takes a few minutes to discuss with the other partners about what the next steps are going forward and get the best information,” said Sgt. Kerry Schmidt. “It takes a little bit of time, and we appreciate the patience that the passengers had on the bus.

“By the time all those plans were made, we had Durham on scene. They went up, took him into custody, the bus was cleared and went on its way.”

Steven Summerville, a retired Toronto staff sergeant and now president of Stay Safe Instructional Programs, a private security training company, said it would not be “common practice” to keep a suspect in a murder investigation on the bus with other passengers, but not “inappropriate” either.

“It depends on the information they have pertaining to his background,” he said. “Depending on the intelligence they have, they need to mitigate or eliminate risks before they engage, so it would appear that that was taken into account before they arrested this individual.”

With files from Star staff

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