A Palm Tran bus driver is credited for keeping her calm when an unruly passenger wielded a knife on Saturday.
Also, a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy help thwart the suspected attacker, identified as Cody Brown, 39, of West Palm Beach, who threatened the bus driver with the knife.
A deputy responding to the scene says he used a tactical maneuver to get Brown to the floor because Brown was coming at him, refusing to get to the ground.
The driver told deputies the incident started because she told Brown she would have to throw him off the bus if he didn’t stop eating and making a mess.
Brown then pulled out a knife, began waving it in the air towards her and yelling obscenities while sitting behind her, an arrest report states.
The bus driver, Lizzie Fletcher, was worried that if she said anything to Brown, it might make things worse.
"She decided that the best thing to do was to feign that there was a mechanical problem with the bus and get that bus off the road,” said Palm Tran spokesman Joe Harrington.
Fletcher successfully pulled the bus over and got off near the Mobile Gas station at the intersection of S. Military Trail and Via Delray Blvd. in unincorporated Delray Beach.
Brown followed her off the bus, waving the knife, but a passenger came to her side and Brown got back on the bus, the deputy wrote in the report.
"She was very smart, acting very quickly. She followed deescalation training and that probably prevented people from getting hurt," said Harrington.
Fletcher called 911 for help.
When deputies arrived, they ordered the rest of the passengers off the bus, and Brown was left sitting inside.
Brown got off the bus, "refused to comply" with the deputy's commands and continued walking towards him, according to the report.
The deputy performed a tactical maneuver and "escorted him to the ground." He reported handcuffing Brown and finding a barber style knife in his pocket.
Records show the same deputy was involved in two fatal shootings, one in 2011 and one in 2013.
Brown is facing aggravated assault, carrying a concealed weapon and resisting officer charges.
