Bus driver attacked by unknown woman in South LA – latest case of subway violence

Late Monday night, another Metro bus driver was attacked, the latest in a series of violent attacks plaguing Los Angeles’ public transit system.

The incident Monday night occurred around 10 p.m. on a bus at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. and Avalon Boulevard, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman told KTLA.

The original call to police was a report of assault and physical contact between a passenger and the bus driver, the spokesman said.

When officers arrived at the scene, they were unable to locate the suspect, described as a black woman in her twenties. She had still not been located as of 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.

A Metro spokesperson confirmed that the LAPD responded to reports of the driver being assaulted at Avalon and MLK, and stated that the driver was treated at the scene by paramedics for his non-life-threatening injuries and released.

No further injuries were reported.

In a statement, the Metro spokesman described the bus drivers as “critical field employees” and said that passenger behavior that leads to assaults or endangers the safety of drivers is “unacceptable.”

Anyone with information about Monday night’s attack is asked to contact the Los Angeles Police Department or call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

In 2024 alone, there were numerous attacks on Metro buses, trains and stations throughout Los Angeles; on May 7, a Metro security guard was stabbed by an intruder whom he later shot, and exactly three weeks later, a man was stabbed at a Mid-City bus stop, just hours after a bus driver was attacked in downtown Los Angeles.

Just eight days ago, two Metro buses were the focus of dangerous incidents within six hours: in one case, the bus was sprayed with graffiti and damaged by fireworks during a road blockade in downtown Los Angeles, and in the other case, an armed passenger was involved in Glendale.

Many of the violent attacks are not fatal, but deaths do occur, such as in a case where a woman was stabbed to death with two knives by a homeless man on a Line B train.

To combat the rising violence – now so bad that riders have staged a “disease outbreak” over safety concerns and one officer said they are “afraid” to ride alone – Metro announced it will dramatically increase the number of police and security officers at all stations across the city.

At the end of June, Metro officials officially announced plans to establish their own police force.

Nancy Fontan contributed to this report.