KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Some of the people who witnessed Saturday's shooting on a Kalamazoo Metro bus returned to the station Monday, taking buses to work while they deal with their lasting trauma.
Representatives from the union representing Metro bus drivers were also at the downtown station Monday afternoon to describe heroic efforts shown by their drivers, as well as to urge further security measures on-site.
Crystal Coy was sitting on a bus, waiting for it to leave for Parchment, when she noticed a man pulling out a gun at the other side of the station.
“After I seen the first few shots, I dropped to the bus floor,” Coy said Monday.
“At one point, it sounded like he was right by the Parchment bus firing. I was scared. “
Police say the man was 54-year-old Anthony Oliver with the gun. They say he got on a bus and fired multiple shots, injuring 3 people.
They say all 3 people had non-life-threatening injuries.
Court records show that Oliver was found guilty of armed robbery back in 1994. He also pleaded no contest to a felony assault with a dangerous weapon charge in 2007.
“I'm still trying to process what I seen, like, I didn’t even want to come down here today,” Coy told FOX 17 Monday.
"It still doesn’t feel real. I know the first chance I got to get off the bus, I just dropped and started having anxiety attacks."
Representatives with the union that represent Metro bus drivers, the Amalgamated Transit Union, were also on-site Monday to speak about some of the actions of their drivers that helped keep people safe.
“We had people on the floor of the buses, backed them out of here, took them to safety, took a man to the hospital as an ambulance, as a first responder,” said Javier M. Perez Jr, an international executive with the Amalgamated Transit Union.
"Nobody in this city has more 1-on-1 interactions every day with the public than our members who drive these buses."
Perez also said they are pushing for more security measures at the transportation center.
“We’d like to see armed security guards down here because it's a major transfer center. Security people were here that were not armed, and they were actually chased by the gunman,” he said Monday.
He says they are working with the transportation center to develop and implement updated safety protocols.
“I know that the agency has partnered with the police department before, and it's not that the agency is unwilling to come up with the dollars, but there’s a shortage with the police department with manpower, same with the county,” Perez said.
Their goal is to limit the possibility that something like this could happen again in Kalamazoo.
The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety has turned the case over to the Michigan State Police Fifth District investigation team.
