Police have made an arrest after a man allegedly made threats to “shoot, stab, and kill” passengers onboard a packed express commuter bus on Auckland’s North Shore last night.
Police said they were notified of an incident on a bus at the Akoranga Station in Northcote around 5.30pm on Wednesday.
“Police responded immediately and took a 28-year-old man into custody without incident,” a spokesperson said.
“No one was injured during the incident.”
A male passenger on board the northbound NX1 service told 1News the double-decker bus was “pretty full” and crossing the Harbour Bridge when a man sitting on the top level began to swear loudly.
“It just kept escalating. He started saying all this racist stuff, then people started looking around because this guy started talking about stabbing people and shooting people and wanting people to leave his country.”
Initially, the man sounded like he was talking to himself but then began challenging other passengers to “have a go”, the commuter said.
“That’s when I started going, ‘this could get serious’.
“I was really worried it was going to escalate further and get physical. I was just hoping he didn’t have any weapons.”
Another passenger told 1News the man was swearing so loudly it was audible from the bottom level of the bus.
“He was repeatedly yelling things like ‘I’ll stab you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you all, I’ll stab you c**t.'” We didn’t know if he had a knife…we also didn’t know if he was threatening someone so a lady downstairs called the police,” she said.
The bus driver also contacted security, parking the bus and putting the hazard lights on once it reached Akoranga Station.
The male passenger said he “couldn’t say a bad word” about the bus driver’s response.
“It sounded like he did his part well, they’re not paid highly and they’re not security guys.”
He said he believed more security was needed on public transport services.
“People are there trying to do the right thing and use the transport system but, every time people get on or off a bus, they feel unsafe. They always have to be scanning the area, it doesn’t feel like a safe thing at the moment.”
Auckland Transport said it was “aware” of an incident on the service.
A 28-year-old man was due to appear in the North Shore District Court on Thursday on two counts of speaking threateningly.