Guidelines

I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following :








Tuesday, July 23, 2019

Board Receives ECAT Driver/Passenger Incident Summary Covering Last 3 Years

A couple of weeks back at our Committee of the Whole a discussion took place regarding ECAT bus driver safety.  The topic was a discussion of providing $200,000.00 barriers for driver safety.

Several anecdotal incidents were described about drivers feeling threatened.

I asked about whether or not drivers who had concealed weapons permits could carry their concealed weapon for their own personal protection---given the fact that ordinary citizens cannot be prevented from bringing their own concealed weapons on our buses if such citizens possess concealed carry permit (s).

Let's just say that topic of conversation, particularly the way it was reported in the paper, went over like a barbell thrown to a drowning swimmer.....

But one good thing did come out of that discussion at that meeting.

The board requested hard data on exactly what incidents have occurred on our ECAT buses over the last three-year period: We have now all been emailed this information by Interim ECAT director Tonya Ellis.....

Summarized in the table below, the incidents are broken up into three categories: assaults, threats, and miscellaneous incidents.

According to Director Ellis, these are the only incidents  reported and of which management is aware.  According to the information provided, "There have been no "major" reported physical assaults of bus operators by passengers in the last three years."  This very small list of incidents, I must admit, is somewhat of a surprise to me;  I would have thought there would have been many more on the list.  But these are only the reported incidents, so who knows how many incidents go unreported.......

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