Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 13, 1990 TAG: 9003132932
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"We will not bend or move because of intimidation and violence," Greyhound Chairman Fred G. Currey said before boarding a Greyhound bus from Jacksonville to Orlando, Fla.
No one was injured in the Connecticut shooting, which occurred on Interstate 84 shortly before 11 a.m. The New York-to-Boston Greyhound bus was headed into Hartford with 19 passengers.
Passengers reported hearing a small pop that some thought was a blown tire.
Police recovered a bullet from the baggage compartment on the driver's side, and were trying to determine the caliber and type of gun used, said state police spokesman Adam Berluti.
The Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Local Unions disavowed responsibility for the Florida shooting, but a union spokesman in Hartford said he believed the Connecticut shooting was motivated by the strike against the only nationwide bus company.
"I would say it's probably strike-related because I have been driving for 17 years and was never shot at," said spokesman Charles True. However, pickets in Hartford denied that union members were responsible.
The union, which represents 6,300 drivers and more than 3,000 office and maintenance workers, went on strike March 2. There have been scattered violent incidents since. A striker was crushed to death by a bus operated by a replacement driver in Redding, Calif., and shots were fired at buses in Chicago and Phoenix.
Currey, Greyhound's chairman and chief executive officer, and Frank Schmeider, its president, flew to Jacksonville early Monday from Dallas after learning of the Florida shooting.
The eight passengers were hurt when someone fired a bullet through the front of a Greyhound bus Sunday night in south Jacksonville. The passengers were injured by fiberglass and shrapnel.
When asked if he thought the shot had come from a striker, Currey said: "I pray that it is not true. I hope that it is not true. I do not want to believe that anybody involved in Greyhound would do such a thing."
The two executives visited the three passengers still hospitalized Monday. Five others were released after hospital treatment. They also visited bus riders who were put up by the company in a Jacksonville hotel overnight.
One hospitalized passenger, Michael Rogers of Atlanta, was critical of the company: "I don't think they should run their lines while they're having a situation like this going on."
In Orlando, Currey criticized union leaders for not speaking out against intimidation.
"Their silence is deafening," he said. Asked why he rode the bus, he said: "I took the trip because I thought it was important for Greyhound people not to be intimidated."
An executive board member of the Jacksonville union local said he didn't believe strikers were behind the shooting.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Weintraub said Monday there have been no arrests in the shooting, and added that the possibility that the shot came from a striker "is one of the leads we are following."
The latest violence came as federal mediators in Washington, D.C., met for three hours Monday for "an exploratory, informal meeting" with union officials.
Jim Power, a spokesman for the Federal Mediation Service, said the union "agreed to the possibility of additional meetings with the mediation service and management to start the collective bargaining process again."
by CNB