Video released by the Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority (VTA) shows a bus driver, who has since been fired, telling a passenger that he did not pick him up because he was black on July 11.
This security-camera footage shows the bus travelling towards Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, when a man local media named as 35-year-old Kevin Brooks tried to flag him down in Edgartown. The VTA said the bus was at capacity when the driver passed Brooks by, but said the driver failed to change the destination marquee to read “Bus at Capacity.” The driver can be heard in the video saying, “I don’t have any room, sorry,” as he approached Brooks.
Later, at Oak Bluffs, Kevin Brooks approached the bus as the driver let people on, asking, “Is there a reason you didn’t stop for me at the Triangle?”
“I don’t know,” the driver replies. He then tells Brooks the bus was full, but adds, "Well, it’s because you’re black.”
The two men then argue. "If the bus doesn’t stop for you it’s because the bus is full,” the driver says to brooks, before turning to passengers and asking, “Has anyone been on since Edgartown?”
The pair exchange a few more words before Brooks leaves, and the driver is heard, “Well, whatever.”
The VTA said on July 12 that the company had “zero tolerance for this type of behavior” and that the driver had been fired, effective immediately. Credit: Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority (VTA) via Storyful
