Los Angeles Times
MANCHESTER, Tenn. – A passenger on a Greyhound bus headed to Florida slashed the driver’s throat in a tussle for the steering wheel, causing a rollover early Wednesday that killed six people and prompted the company to suspend services nationwide at a time of widespread travel jitters.
In Everett, routes to Seattle and south, and Vancouver, British Columbia, were delayed until the depot reopened at about 10 a.m. Only a few passengers had to wait at the station on Pacific Avenue for the buses to run again, a Greyhound workers said.
Federal officials said there was no sign that the attack, which occurred early in the morning as the bus drove east through rural Tennessee, was connected to terrorism. The driver survived, but the assailant died during the crash, along with five passengers. Thirty-four other injured travelers were taken to area hospitals.
“This is not an act of terrorism. It’s an isolated incident,” said Joe Clark, special agent in charge of the FBI’s office in Knoxville .
Clark identified the suspected attacker as Igric Damir, a 29-year-old undocumented immigrant from Croatia who apparently had boarded the bus a day earlier in Chicago and attempted to hijack it using a “sharp implement.”
“I believe he was trying to take over control and drive the vehicle,” Clark said during a news conference held near the toppled bus, about 60 miles southeast of Nashville on Interstate 24.
Clark said it was unclear why the man wanted to take command of the bus, or where he wanted to go. He said Damir had entered the United States through Miami on a 30-day visa in 1999 and never left.
“This is probably a disturbed individual,” Clark said. “We do not know that yet. We may never know that.”
The bus ended up on its side in a roadside thicket. Several victims thrown out of the vehicle were crushed, authorities said, but others who were ejected survived.
Authorities said the driver, who was not identified, underwent surgery for neck wounds and was in stable condition. A doctor at the Manchester hospital where the driver was treated said the patient reported having been attacked with a razor or box-cutter knife, the type believed used by some of the hijackers during the terror attacks.
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