On this episode of “If They Only Had a Byrna”… A public transportation bus driver is attacked by a transient after asking her to leave the bus. Earlier this summer, an LA Department of Transportation bus driver who drives a route in the well-known South Central district of the city asked a rider to exit the bus after she refused to pay the fare.

The suspect then attacked the driver, and the driver had to fight back and forcefully remove the woman from the bus. Public sector employees like this one are seeing a rise in violence from those they serve, and in many cases, those attackers are suffering from mental health disorders that heavily cloud their judgment and make them incredibly unpredictable.

If they only had a Byrna… This driver could have used a Byrna SD or LE with a combination of kinetic rounds and Byrna Max or pepper rounds to create enough distance from the attacker to get her outside of the bus so that she could have closed the doors. Many individuals will load their magazines so that the first several rounds out of the launcher are kinetic rounds, which can help back off an attacker before deploying chemical rounds if they are needed.

While going “hands-on” with the suspect may have worked out in this case, if you have to fight an assailant, even one you outmatch, the chance of you being injured increases exponentially. So be smart, be safe, and be prepared to defend.