Manitoba Bus Tragedy

A presumably psychotic Vince Weiguang Li boarded a Greyhound bus in Manitoba, sat for a bit, moved to the back of the bus, then attacked Tim McLean without provocation or warning. Witnesses described a “Rambo” style knife.

Obviously, there’s been a lot of discussion about this attack in the blogosphere and within chat rooms. What has surprised me is how quickly talk turned to criticism of the other passengers on the bus. Even Debbie Schlussel has ridiculed them for failing to help the victim. She compares them to the people who acted against the “Shoe Bomber” and others have referred to the passengers on Flight 93.

I’m not so quick to the judge the passengers. There’s an interesting book by Amanda Ripley called “The Unthinkable. Who survives when disaster strikes and why” which was excerpted in Time magazine. Experts have found that different people respond drastically differently when disaster strike. Some simply freeze. Thankfully, no one on the bus did that or there might have been more victims. Some people immediately run. Some calmly survey the situation and then make a decision about responding. The best outcomes happen when people are prepared for potential situations and have thought about possible responses. Even better if they have practiced. (See the Time link above and read about Rick Rescorla who was directly responsible for 2687 of 2700 Morgan Stanley employees surviving the collapse of World Trade Center Tower 2. He was an amazing man.)

No one on that bus was prepared for anything like what happened. No one had thought about it even being a possibility. Who would have? The passengers were relaxing, reading, watching movies, etc. The victim might have been sleeping. There was no advance warning. What would you have done? What if your child were with you? I would guess that I would get the hell off of the bus and far from the killer. That would be my first reaction.

With the airplane situations mentioned by Debbie Schlussel, there were at least two differences from the bus attack. The passengers on Flight 93 had time to assess the situation and decide how to react. The passengers on both flights had to do something in order to try to save themselves and others. On the bus, the attack was happening RIGHT THEN AND THERE. The threat was immediate. Self-preservation demanded a flight response followed by an assessment of what to do next.

The victim was stabbed with a large hunting knife on a bus in the middle of nowhere. The fact that there was only one victim was the best possible outcome given the situation. Criticizing the other passengers accomplishes nothing.

****************************

Some people are calling for additional security on buses. I don’t see how that’s possible without drastically altering how buses operate. Passengers get on and off at many points across the country. Some stops are just rural gas stations or coffee shops. Are you going to install metal detectors on the door to every bus? Will bus drivers have to screen all passengers? Will a security officer have to be on every bus? It will be interesting to see what happens.