Warren County authorities charged a man in connection with the hijacking of a Greyhound bus along Interstate 85 late Thursday.
Jose Flores, 32, faces one count of kidnapping, said officials with the Warren County Detention Center. His bond hasn’t been set yet, and he was scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 16.
Passengers on the Greyhound bus from Richmond, Va., to Raleigh said it wasn’t clear what the suspect wanted.
“He was just irate, (didn’t) make no sense,” passenger Xavier Little said. “Nobody understood what was the purpose. He kept saying, ‘I want to go to the courthouse, the nearest courthouse.'”
Vance County Sheriff Peter White said that a passenger from Arlington, Va., asked the driver a question, then pulled out a gun along Interstate 85 South in Warren County. He also implied that he had a bomb.
Passengers said he ordered them to get off the bus, but they were frozen.
“We were too scared. We didn’t know if he was going to shoot us in the back of the head for getting off the bus,” Little said. “He just kept yelling, ‘Y’all got a problem? Y’all going to do something? I got nine shots, and I’ll start killing right from the front.'”
Robert Fusco said the hijacker then pointed the gun at him and three other passengers in the front. “He talked about shooting us an example,” Fusco said.
The suspect forced the driver to stop along I-85, and all but two of the approximately three dozen passengers got out before the driver continued on, White said.
Meanwhile, a passing driver called 911 and followed the bus, White said. When the bus stopped at a gas station in Henderson, officers with drawn guns surrounded it.
The driver and two passengers got away safely, and authorities used a stun gun on Flores before taking him into custody, White said. A search turned up no explosives on the bus.
Greyhound sent another bus to take the passengers to Raleigh. Passengers said they were nervous to continue on their trips.
“I still got a long way to go, and these people expect me to get on another bus. Would you get on another bus after you had a gun stuck to your head?” Fusco said.
Fusco, who was traveling to visit family in Florida, called for increased security measures on buses.
“Something’s got to be done. I could have been dead tonight,” he said. “Anybody could walk up on here on a Greyhound bus and have a gun on them and without checking nobody. It might slow things down, but this ain’t right.”
Calls to Greyound Friday morning have not been returned.
source: wral.com
