New York City bus drivers are told when they are hired that they someday may be called on to assist the police department, a judge noted yesterday as he rejected a request to ban police from using city buses to transport arrested protesters. Southern District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the ruling from the bench after listening to arguments from a lawyer for the Transport Workers Union of Greater New York and attorneys for the city and the New York City Transit Authority. The union had sought a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, saying that police might try to commandeer buses again during a protest today if a judge did not protect the drivers. But Judge Engelmayer noted that the bus controversy over the Occupy Wall Street demonstration on Saturday was unusual because no one could remember another instance where the NYPD asked city bus drivers to transport people after arrests. Police stopped four city buses, asking the drivers to go to the Brooklyn Bridge to pick up some of the 700 people who were surrounded by officers in the middle of the bridge and arrested.
Judge Engelmayer cited a section of the new bus operator’s instruction manual that puts bus drivers on notice that they may be called on to assist police officers, as they were after a building collapse, on Sept. 11, 2001, and during Hurricane Irene, when 200 buses were used to evacuate nursing homes. The judge said he would not order a stop to the use of buses to transport people during an emergency because it did not appear that the union had legal standing to bring the lawsuit. He said it did not appear the U.S. Constitution was violated and the proposed ban on the NYPD was overly broad.
