Thug students drive fear in bus passengers

Passengers on some Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) buses are claiming that they are fearful of students who share their mode of transportation daily.

"For a while now, you have some little boys that come on the bus and them behave very badly, but nobody cah talk to them cuz them have them knife and ice pick," said Tashauna Duncan.

She claimed to have witnessed rowdy behaviour of schoolboys on the buses on several occasions.

Danoi Francis said she has witnessed students, who he labelled as thugs, threatening adults who asked them to behave orderly.

"One evening, they were playing music on the phones and going on, and them take on a lady who asked them to tone down," he explained.

Francis said that fearful passengers have resorted to ignoring the rowdy students.

Just last week, a video was posted on social media which shows schoolboys threatening an elderly man who had requested that they lower their voices.

"A what do tha elder yah man, like him ready to go hospital," was the male student's response to the man's request.

But according to reports, male students are not alone as their female counterparts have been found guilty of similar behaviour.

"Other day, a group a girls come on a bus and when we ask them to stop cursing the bad words, one a dem dip up under the woman same time," said Ruth-Ann Ashman, who said the incident occurred a month ago on a Portmore bus.

When THE STAR contacted JUTC media specialist, Granville Newell, he said he was unaware of last week's incident.

Newell also said drivers are not instructed to search students even if their behaviour is aggressive.

"If we did that we may have to check every student, so checks aren't done," he explained.