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A New York City bus driver issued an apology after a viral video showed him spitting on a Brooklyn woman on Saturday while she was with her children.
In a new turn of events, MTA bus driver Olusedun Alale said he had a change of heart over his actions.
“Looking back, I wish I would have just stayed on the bus,” Alale, 51 told WABC. “But at that point, I don’t know what happened.”
In the disturbing footage Alale and a young mother named Sapphire Philip are shown in a verbal exchange on the B52 bus in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Philip told WABC in a separate conversation that she boarded the bus with her two children after recently purchasing a stroller for her two-year-old daughter.
Philip said that Alale became aggravated with her after she couldn’t figure out how to close the stroller to make room for other passengers, and when she took a moment to try to read the manual, her and Alale got into a heated verbal confrontation. Philip decided to exit, but moments later Alale can be seen running out of the bus in Philip’s direction where he reportedly spit on her.
“He was talking about baby father, ‘You need to tell your baby father to get you a car. You don’t need to be on my bus,'” she said about their interactions prior to the alleged assault.
However Alale claims that he’s a victim too and was physically assaulted in an incident that took place prior to the taped encounter. Alae says that Philip struck him several times and spit on him while he was on the phone with MTA authorities after he asked her to close her stroller.
I want to apologize to my daughter,” he said. “I want to apologize to all my friends. I want to apologize to my friends because that’s not the person I am.”
The MTA has reportedly opened an investigation into the incident.
“The bus operator depicted in this disturbing video is being held out of service while we conduct an investigation and we encourage anyone with information to contact us,” an MTA spokesperson said in a statement obtained by WABC.
