Freeman Brown was driving a Metrobus just after dawn recently on Minnesota Avenue SE when a boy jumped into his path with a rock in his hand.
Metrobuses on a half-dozen routes east of the Anacostia River are routinely assaulted by children and teenagers throwing everything from stones to a bowling ball. Drivers have grown accustomed to showers of glass. Passengers have learned to keep the windows closed on even the hottest days and strategically choose seats or duck down on particular streets. At least 11 drivers have been hurt in a one-year period, most reporting eye injuries.
Metro Transit Police didn't realize the extent of the daily barrages until enraged riders called their advisory neighborhood commissioner in May and demanded meetings in their community, just east of St. Elizabeths Hospital.
Police gave this advice last week to Metrobus drivers worried about getting hurt by broken glass: Wear safety goggles behind the wheel.
While rock-throwing at buses is a decades-old annoyance in many cities, longtime Metrobus drivers say the problem here has escalated in the past year. "It's pretty much an everyday occurrence," said Transit Police Lt. Mark Olson, who oversees policing of buses.
Metro could not provide complete statistics on the extent of the problem. The individual Metrobus garages have not consistently tracked the number of incidents or the amount of related injuries and repairs to buses. The agency's central offices may keep some statistics, but a spokesman could not provide them Friday because a computer system was down.
The transit system spends $15,000 a month to repair vandalized buses across the region, including those with broken windows and slashed seats. Phil Wallace, the superintendent for bus maintenance, did not know exactly how much broken windows are costing Metro but said it costs $700 to replace a windshield and $200 to replace a side window.
In the seven months that Donny Lewis has been driving a Metrobus in Southeast Washington, his bus windows have been broken four times by children hurling rocks, bottles and, two weeks ago, a 70-pound chunk of concrete construction debris. One night, a brick shattered the driver's window inches from his head. When he got home, he was still picking bits of broken glass from his brown hair.
On Dec. 10, a teenager hurled a bowling ball through the closed window of a moving Metrobus on Benning Road SE. No one was injured, but plenty of passengers on the W4 route bus were shaken, transit officials said. Three days later, transit police arrested a 16-year-old boy and charged him in the incident with assault with a dangerous weapon, a felony.
Metro officials say most trouble occurs on routes that snake through graffiti-splattered public housing on the east side of the District, where children while away warm nights on broken concrete sidewalks next to fire hydrants that long ago lost their caps.
"To the kids, this is a sport," said Ricardo Henzsley, a Metrobus driver who was recently hit by a yellow paintball when he opened his bus door at a stop on Good Hope Road SE.
Metro officials are reluctant to reroute the buses, saying they serve people who have few alternatives for transportation.
On Monday, a W6 Metrobus turned off Stanton Road SE and followed the route into a narrow canyon lined by three-story apartment buildings. It was a rainy night, but clusters of children, from toddlers to teenagers, were outside, eyeing the illuminated bus as it slowly rolled past. On Jasper Road SE, the bus headed down a hill that locals call "the hole" because it is dark, without streetlights, and lined by overgrown brush on both sides. Drivers say it's an ideal hiding place for children lying in wait with stones in their hands.
"I sit right up here next to the driver, and I always make sure the window's closed," said Vida Kelly, who was riding the W6. "It's horrible, what's going on."
A superintendent at the Metrobus garage in Southeast Washington, where the most troubled routes are based, compiled a partial list that shows 62 rock-throwing incidents and 11 resulting injuries from April 2002 to May 2003.
Transit Police said much of that information was never relayed to them. "We weren't getting the reports," Olson said. In May, a handful of bus riders and residents along the W6 and W8 routes alerted Sandra Seegars, their advisory neighborhood commissioner in the Garfield area of Ward 8. She organized meetings with Metro officials, transit and D.C. police and city officials.
"There's a breakdown in communications somewhere," Metrobus driver Antonio Cain told Transit Police during a meeting about safety at the Southeast bus garage.
Olson has distributed new forms to bus drivers, hoping to collect better data. He said he is stepping up patrols of the troubled routes and has increased the number of undercover officers on certain buses. He said the effort is beginning to pay off and pointed to one arrest of a juvenile July 17.
Metro officials say they also will send new camera-equipped buses on some of the troubled routes in the hope of deterring assaults.
Still, many drivers interviewed said they haven't seen an increased police presence. "They followed me one night and made me feel good," said Lewis, recalling how he was trailed by a police car two months ago. "But that night, nothing happened."
Drivers end up looking after each other, warning other drivers if they've been pelted with rocks. It's a common thread of discussion. When Lewis finished his runs one recent weeknight and ducked into an employee area inside the Anacostia Metro station, the others looked up and one asked, "How many rocks they throw tonight?"
Stephen Barrett, a Metrobus supervisor in Southeast Washington, said buses have always had less security than trains, and since Sept. 11, 2001, it's only become more apparent. "They don't have enough cops, plain and simple," Barrett said. "The emphasis is on rail safety. We kind of take a back seat."
Transit Police Chief Polly Hanson said the bus crackdown is labor-intensive, requiring police in scout cars as well as on buses. She said parents and other agencies -- including the city's Housing Authority, Public Works Department, schools and District police -- share in the responsibility to improve security along the bus routes.
"We're kind of frustrated," Hanson said. "Who really owns this issue? The community owns this issue. These are their children. They have to be taught that it's not appropriate to throw rocks. . . . We take this seriously because it has to do with the quality of life of our employees. But I need to worry about terrorism, and we spend an inordinate amount of time focused on juvenile crime and juvenile disorder."
Metrobus operators who drive the Southeast routes have been attempting to forge friendships with the community. They decorate a bus at Halloween, sing to senior citizens and buy school supplies to distribute free at the Anacostia Metro station in September.
"The employees are trying to make kids realize there are people on the other sides of those windows," Hanson said. "But it's tough."
James Lucas works on replacing a Metrobus window damaged by vandalism. People have broken windows on Donny Lewis's Metrobus in Southeast Washington four times in seven months.
