APD crash report reveals moments leading up to former MARTA bus driver slapping man
The Atlanta Police Department released a crash report that involves a MARTA bus operator who is accused of slapping a man in front of his kids after a fender bender.
According to the report, on Dec. 23, officers were dispatched to an accident at the intersection of 16th Street and Spring Street in Midtown.
When officers arrived, they were met by Sean Harris, who was with his wife and two kids. Harris told officers he was driving straight on Spring Street in the middle lane when a MARTA bus hit his car on the driver’s side.
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Harris told police in the report that the MARTA bus was making a wide left turn, causing his vehicle to be pushed into another lane. The report added that medical officials evaluated his wife at the scene because she was complaining of an injury.
According to Willie Nash, the MARTA bus operator, he was also going straight on Spring Street and was turning left onto 16th Street when Harris stopped him near the MARTA Arts Center Station. Nash claimed he did not know he had hit Harris’ vehicle.
Harris told Channel 2′s Michael Seiden that after he tried to flag down the bus in vain, he followed the bus to the Arts Center stop.
Harris said when he confronted Nash about the collision, “He just started berating me with the words of profanity and yelling at me and calling me racial slurs.”
A video posted on YouTube by Harris of the encounter shows him asking Nash to speak with a supervisor and then showing Nash slapping the cell phone out of Harris’s hand.
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Moments later, the video shows Nash hit Harris in the head.
MARTA officials sent Channel 2 Action News the following statement regarding the incident:
“On Saturday, Dec. 23, a bus and car were involved in a minor accident near Arts Center Station and both drivers got out of their vehicles and the incident escalated. The bus operator has been relieved of duty pending a disciplinary investigation. While Atlanta Police is handling the case as a traffic-related incident, MARTA Police’s Criminal Investigations Unit has also opened an investigation. MARTA does not condone this type of behavior from employees and requires operators to undergo recurring de-escalation training to defuse these types of situations.”
Nash faces charges of simple battery, aggravated assault, and first-degree criminal damage to property.
He has been cited for failure to maintain lane in the crash investigation.
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