Spring Break
Laidlaw tragedy calls for caution
Michelle Jew
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It hasn’t happened yet, but it could have.
On Monday, a female employee from the Laidlaw Transit Inc. killed one and injured three Laidlaw employees in the bus yard.
Part of the bus driver’s route was to pick up kindergartners at Horace Mann School in downtown San Jose.
Those parents surely feel safe about sending their 5- and 6-year-olds on the bus now.
A Mercury News article described the occurrence as an oddity among workplace shootings, because outbursts seldom involve female assailants.
Laidlaw Transit Inc. requires a physical test for all drivers, however, psychological tests are not given.
Cathline Repunte’s co-workers described her as quiet, polite and cheerful.
That same polite and cheerful woman shot three employees in an office and killed the man who was training her to drive a bigger bus with a semiautomatic handgun.
It could have happened here.
Think back to last semester.v Remember the clunky shuttle buses that used to transport students from the Park and Ride lot to the main campus?
Remember the paper that was taped to the front of the cabs?
The one with the computer-generated group of smiling kids? Remember the name that was above that joyous scene?
Laidlaw Transit Services.
The university dropped the company at the end of last semester — thank goodness.
In a Jan. 30 Daily article, Sgt. John Laws, supervisor of Traffic and Parking Operations for the University Police Department, said that after the department received a number of complaints about the size of Laidlaw’s shuttles, poorly maintained schedules and shuttle drivers, the university looked for a new service.
The Park and Ride lot and Spartan Village are currently shuttled by tour buses from the United Brothers Charters and Tours company. Looks like the higher-ups made a good decision.
Because of the incident, the company cancelled service on all of their routes, leaving the San Jose Unified School District scrambling to find transportation for the stranded kids.
At least Repunte wasn’t transporting the kids she was supposed to pick up at 7:45 a.m.
The shooting took place two hours before she was supposed to pick them up.
Although Laidlaw employees said they never suspected Repunte to be out of control, parents of some of the kindergartners she drove said she was the female driver who yelled at the children when they were being too loud or rowdy on the ride to and from school.
Yelling at little kids, however, especially kindergartners, is a little much.
It’s a tragedy that one man died and three were shot.
It’s lucky that she wasn’t on the road with children under her care. And it’s disturbing that nobody had a clue that this woman was a ticking time bomb.
Maybe the shuttle services should instate the psychological tests after all.
Michelle Jew is the Spartan
Daily Managing Editor.
“Spoiled” appears Wednesdays.
