Megabus passengers tackle man after gun goes off on Jane Addams

DES PLAINES, Ill. (WLS) -- Passengers rushed to protect others after a shot was fired on a Megabus traveling from Chicago to Minneapolis. Illinois State Police are heading the investigation.

Police said a man was in the bathroom on the bus when his gun went off late Tuesday night. Other passengers said they grabbed him after he came out and started to argue with the driver.

"He went into the bathroom and fired off a shot," said Kenneth Smith, one of the passengers who subdued the man. "It was real loud. We didn't know what it was until we saw the gun."

Smith was about one of 50 passengers on board the bus. He says it was a few minutes after the gun was fired that a man came down the stairs and started harassing the driver.

"She was kind of pushing him off her, because he had her by the arm," Smith said. "Like he was pulling her, like he was trying to drive."

The Megabus was on the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway in northwest suburban Des Plaines at the time of the incident. Smith says he confronted the man, who left briefly but then came back.

"I told him he was getting to close," he said. "As he kept coming, that's when I rushed him. I choked him. The clip came out of the gun and that's when I saw it, pulled it out, gave it to my cousin and I held him down until the police came."

A spokesperson for Megabus said the bus driver pulled off the tollway and stopped at a gas station at the Des Plaines Oasis. Passengers held the man until police arrived and took him into custody around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Passengers said the man had been harassing a female passenger on the second level of the bus earlier. That woman apparently complained to the driver. Passengers said that's when the man went to the bathroom with the gun.

No one was injured. Passengers were moved to another Megabus and continued along the route to their destination.

In Illinois, guns are not allowed to be brought onto buses, trains or any other form of transportation, but there are not any rules requiring companies to screen passengers before they board, so there is little to prevent someone from bringing a gun on board.

Police said charges are pending against the man in custody. He is being held at a jail in Des Plaines.