EAST HARLEM — A knife-wielding fare beater assaulted an MTA bus driver after she picked him up in East Harlem, police and the woman's union reps said.
The 30-year-old was driving an M15 bus at 3 a.m. Friday when the man got on at East 125th Street and Second Avenue and didn't pay a fare, police said.
When told to pay, the man became irate and demanded money from the mother of two, according to police and the driver who spoke through a representative at the Transport Workers Union Local 100.
She asked not to be named because her attacker has not yet been arrested, the representative said. The NYPD confirmed the report of the attack.
The man, who was the only passenger on the bus, pulled out what appeared to be a hunting knife and held a note up to the bus driver’s partition, she said.
“I can’t read that. I’m sorry,” she told him.
“Don’t scream, just give me the money,” the attacker then told her, police said.
She handed over $100, which was the driver's own money intended for a babysitter watching her 7-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl, the union rep said.
The man then reached around the partition and hit the driver with the handle of the knife, causing bruising on the right side of her face and forehead, police said.
He ran off on East 119th Street toward Third Avenue, police said.
The driver was treated and released from a local hospital.
“At first I was mad, then I was scared,” she told the union rep. “I’m a little shaken up.”
The attack came more than a week after an Upper East Side MTA bus driver was robbed at knifepoint.
John Samuelsen, the union president, called for greater protection for city bus drivers.
“The MTA and the city must recognize the extreme danger faced by the men and women who make this system run every day, and they must step up and better protect NYC Transit Workers," he said in a statement.
“While most of the city was asleep, our Bus Operator was out there performing this vital service only to be attacked by another dangerous criminal. This must stop. If this epidemic of horrific attacks was directed at the politicians and bureaucrats of this city, action would be swiftly taken."
An MTA spokeswoman said: "We are not commenting as this is an active police investigation."
