{"id":5729,"date":"2020-01-15T19:12:41","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T00:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=5729"},"modified":"2020-01-15T19:12:55","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T00:12:55","slug":"bus-drivers-with-citrus-connection-now-can-carry-non-lethal-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2020\/01\/15\/bus-drivers-with-citrus-connection-now-can-carry-non-lethal-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"Bus drivers with Citrus Connection now can carry non-lethal weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1115\" height=\"152\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Citrus-Connection-logo-horizontal.png?fit=1024%2C140&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5730\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Citrus-Connection-logo-horizontal.png?w=1115&amp;ssl=1 1115w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Citrus-Connection-logo-horizontal.png?resize=300%2C41&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Citrus-Connection-logo-horizontal.png?resize=1024%2C140&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Citrus-Connection-logo-horizontal.png?resize=768%2C105&amp;ssl=1 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Citrus Connection will now allow its bus drivers to carry\nnon-lethal weapons, like pepper spray, to defend themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe encourage them to be properly trained at their expense,\nand if they are going to be carrying, we would like them to let us know,\u201d said Citrus\nConnection Marketing and Communications Manager Dave Walters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An Amalgamated Transit Union spokesperson said he does not\nknow of any other transit authorities in the U.S. that allow bus drivers to\ncarry weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Administrators at Citrus Connection, which operates public\ntransit in Polk County, will now work to create a procedure for drivers to\ncarry those self-defense items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Between 2017 and 2019, four Citrus Connection bus drivers were\nphysically attacked, and 18 drivers were verbally abused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In April 2018, bus surveillance video showed a passenger\npunching a Citrus Connection driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHe went after me and punched me really hard twice in the\nright side of my face. The first punch blew away my glasses and the second\npunch blew away my hat,\u201d the driver wrote in an internal incident report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Citrus Connection does not allow drivers to carry guns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The transit authority has a ridership of more than 1 million\neach year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Citrus Connection will now allow its bus drivers to carry non-lethal weapons, like pepper spray, to defend themselves. \u201cWe encourage them to be properly trained at their expense, and if&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}