D.C. police have charged a 30-year-old Northeast man with second-degree murder in the death of a pedestrian who was struck by a carjacked Metro bus Tuesday morning.
Police officially accused Keith James Loving of killing 40-year-old Anthony Payne of Northwest in what Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier has described as a “bizarre” incident.
About 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Mr. Loving boarded a bus in the 3800 block of Jay Street NE and stood beside the driver, police said. As the bus came to a stop in the 800 block of Kenilworth Avenue, he attacked the driver with a weapon and the other passengers fled. The driver also escaped, hitting an emergency button to alert authorities.
Mr. Loving then took control of the bus and drove it to a Crown gas station at Minnesota and Nannie Helen Burroughs avenues, where it hit and killed Mr. Payne in the parking lot, pinning him against a Dumpster, police said. Officers arrived quickly and arrested Mr. Loving.
“The entire duration of the event was less than three minutes,” Chief Lanier said at a Tuesday press briefing.
Police have not determined a motive for incident, but the chief said Mr. Loving “appeared to be very strong and violent,” suggesting that drug usage and/or mental issues may be involved.
SEE ALSO: Metro bus carjacked Tuesday morning in D.C.
The bus driver, who has not been identified, reportedly had suffered minor injuries but was still in a hospital Wednesday. His condition was not known.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, which represents bus drivers, said it wants more Metro Transit Police officers to patrol the vehicles. It said that 170 bus drivers were assaulted by riders in 2014, and last year “that number exponentially grew and included a horrifying incident where a station manager at Stadium-Armory Metro Station was stabbed, and another incident where a bus operator was caught in gun crossfire outside his bus in Southeast D.C.”
“This union, representing more than 9,000 of the operators, station managers, clerks and mechanics of Metro, is calling upon Metro to take action and immediately increase police presence,” ATU Local 689 said in a statement. “The lives of transit employees and our riders are depending on it.”
Metro already has deployed more officers and patrols at the Deanwood subway station in Northeast, where two teenaged boys were killed in separate incidents within three weeks of each other.
A Metro spokesman said the transit agency deploys officers where crime has increased, adding that attacks on bus drivers have declined by 30 percent in the past year.
Chief Lanier said Tuesday’s entire incident was captured on video by a surveillance camera on the bus.
• Ryan M. McDermott can be reached at rmcdermott@washingtontimes.com.
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