Halifax Transit passengers, staff concerned with recent spate of violent attacks

Many Halifax Transit passengers and drivers are concerned over a recent rash of violent incidents on buses.

Some Halifax Transit passenger and drivers are rattled over a series of recent stabbings at bus stops.

Elliott Chorny is facing several charges – including attempted murder – in relation to the stabbing of a six-year-old boy in Halifax last Sunday.

There was another unrelated stabbing at the Cobequid Terminal in Lower Sackville.

“Shortly before 1:00 p.m., our officers responded to an altercation on Cobequid Road at a bus terminal. It involves 15 individuals, approximately,” says Guillaume Tremblay, public information officer for the Nova Scotia RCMP.

Officers conducted a traffic stop and noticed a young passenger suffering from a stab wound. They applied first aid and the person went to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Tremblay says a sixteen-year-old was arrested later that night in nearby Beaverbank and is facing multiple charges, including aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

“These past few weeks we have seen very concerning incidents involving weapons, whether it’s in the RCMP area or other police jurisdictions,” Tremblay says.

Following a fight involving a hammer on a bus last week, Patricio Garcia, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, is calling for increased security.

“We’ve had a supervisor at Lacewood and the Bridge terminal, they’re there at night with a security guard and we’ve seen a huge reduction in many kinds of issues at both those terminals,” Garcia says. “Certainly at Cobequid you could have a security guard there. We have security guards at Portland Hills and at Sackville Terminal at night.”

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