...and if I were in law enforcement, I wouldn't know whom to prosecute. Perhaps it is fair that both parties to the fight end up facing the music. I had a school principal for whom that was policy, and it should be policy more often in the adult world. Charging a bus driver for possession of a weapon when that weapon is the phone which comes with the bus does seem to be excessive. The consensus in the comments section under the story on Gothamist is that the man who didn't surrender his seat to the old lady with the cane deserved what he got.
from http://gothamist.com/2007/08/05/bus_driver_beat.php
August 5, 2007
Bus Driver Beats Young Man With No Manners

A Queens bus driver got into a brawl on his bus with a 22-year-old passenger after the younger man refused to surrender his seat at the front of the bus to an elderly woman with a cane. The New York Post reports that Larry Woods, who is 44, smashed passenger Christian Custis over the head with the bus's onboard phone after the man half his age wouldn't get out of a seat marked reserved for the handicapped when an elderly woman with a cane boarded the bus at 164th St. and Hillside Ave. in Jamaica, Queens yesterday morning.

The phone clobbering ignited the brawl between the two men, who fought in front of a busload of passengers. Both were eventually taken to Mary Immaculate Hospital before heading to the 103rd precinct house. The ill-mannered and short-tempered men, Custis and Woods, respectively, were both arraigned on charges of assault and harrassment. Woods was also charged with possession of a weapon: his bus's phone. :shock: