MTA driver stabs rider who slugged him in chaos on bus: cops, sources

An MTA bus driver stabbed a rider who flew into a rage and slugged him when the operator refused to let him off mid-stop Friday in Brooklyn, authorities and sources said.Bus driver Ian Bascombe, 58, was behind the wheel of the B41 at Foster and Flatbush avenues in Kensington around 12:20 p.m.when a troubled “known recidivist” customer, Quentin Branch, 33, ordered him to stop because he’d boarded the wrong bus, according to cops and sources.Bascombe tried to keep driving until he could find a safe spot to pull over – but Branch wasn’t having it, sources said.The irate rider allegedly spat at Bascombe and then seethed, “I’m going to break your jaw” before slugging him in the left eye, sources said.Bascombe allegedly pulled out a “sharp object” and stabbed Branch in the head and left leg, police said.Both men were taken to the Kings County Hospital Center for treatment and arrested, cops said.Branch of East Flatbush was charged with second- and third-degree assault and harassment, authorities said.He is known as a “transit offender recidivist,” sources said, although information on his criminal history was not immediately available Friday.Bascombe of Prospect Park South was also charged with assault in the second and third degrees, as well as criminal possession of a weapon, cops and sources said.The operator has worked for the MTA for 20 years, the agency said.“Violence on buses puts New Yorkers at risk and is not acceptable,” Frank Annicaro, NYC Transit’s senior vice president for buses, said in a statement.

“Pending internal review, this Bus Operator is being withheld from service.”...