After a Charlotte bus driver was shot and killed, his mother is calling for broader safety measures for drivers. | Arthur Reeder/Pixabay
After a Charlotte bus driver was shot and killed, his mother is calling for broader safety measures for drivers. | Arthur Reeder/Pixabay
The violent death of a Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) bus driver has turned the victim's mother into an advocate for change.
Sylvia Rivera is calling for improved safety measures on buses. Her son Ethan Rivera was shot during an incident on Feb. 11, and he died the next day. Since then, the mother has been carrying a torch calling not only for justice, but for safety for other drivers.
"Anything I can put out there for my son, I'm going to fight," Rivera said in a WBTV news report Wednesday. "I'm going to fight because his life is not going to go down in vain like that."
A suspect, Darian Thavychith, has been arrested and charged. Rivera said she and other family members plan to be at the trial so the suspect can see the people whose lives he disrupted.
She is also pushing for big changes, beginning with upgrading the charge of assaulting a bus driver to felony offense, the report said. More importantly, Rivera thinks a bulletproof partition should be installed to protect the drivers.
Already, CATS has been working with Charlotte police to provide more or a police presence at the transit center and along bus routes, the report said. The public transportation company is also going to upgrade security at bus facilities. Drivers are receiving training on how to de-escalate a tense situation, and all radios are being checked to ensure they are working properly.
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