Do I make you nervous?

The afternoon of the 28^th, I found myself trying to get home via the bus lines from The Outlets at Bergen Town Center in Paramus, N.J. (I normally ride NJ Transit trains but due to weekend track work through mid August on the Pascack Valley Line, there were no trains running. Thus I was forced to ride bus lines of which I was not familiar.)

I left the mall, I came to the bus stop area and looked for a posted schedule of times and bus lines. There was none. I looked for the text number/mobile update sign and there was none posted there either. About 3:25 p.m., a bus pulled up (Bus No. 7583, NJ License Plate OXZ7010) and parked about 30 feet from the covered shelter. I got up and walked over to the bus of which the driver was still sitting but the doors were closed.

I knocked on the closed doors and said “excuse me.”

The driver was filling out a white envelope with the NJ Transit logo on it. She never looked up or even acknowledged me. I said “excuse me” again and told the driver that I just had a quick question about the bus and its destination stops etc. This time she waved her hand at me dismissively and still never opened the door nor even looked at me.

I thought maybe she was motioning me to go look at a schedule somewhere. I walked away, looked around the shelter again and still saw nothing. I walked back to the bus and knocked on the door glass again. I told the driver “there was no schedule posted anywhere and could she please just help me with one question”. She ignored me again, then got up out of her driver’s seat and walked to the back of the bus.

I then told her that I was going to file a complaint with the NJ Transit main office because of her attitude.

I pulled out my smart phone and snapped pictures of the side of the bus and the front of the bus to get the license and bus number. (The pictures are time dated 3:36 p.m.)

I then went back to the shelter and sat down. Another woman was waiting there and witnessed the entire incident. I explained to this woman how I was trying to ask the driver a question and was totally ignored. The woman told me that drivers on this route are often rude and shook her head.

At 3:47 p.m. another bus – that said OUT of SERVICE - pulled up (Bus Number 7856) and I knocked on the window and told the driver I had a question, he opened the door, listened to my question and then I told him what had just happened. He said that the first bus was probably the one I needed to board and that he was going out of service and to be sure to file a complaint against the first driver.

The first bus was still parked, had her sign off and door closed.

I left the bus waiting area and I walked over to the CVS pharmacy across the street to use the restroom and when I came back, the first bus had pulled up to the shelter, had turned her destination sign on (168 New York) and had let the one woman waiting, and several other passengers, on the bus.

I ran back across the street and came up to the bus and waited for her to open the door. I knocked again and she just sat there in her seat ignoring me. I sat back down in the shelter and was resigned for her to pull off and wait for the next bus. It’s now about 3:54 p.m.

At 3:57 p.m., two squad cars from the Paramus Police Department sped up to the scene and out jumped three officers. I then realized that she had called the police on me.

One of the went over to her driver’s side window and started talking to the driver as the other two stood about 10 yards away from me, just staring me down. I just sat and didn’t say anything.

About 4:05, Paramus Police Officer Dmitiriy Mazur (I believed he was the officer that was doing all the talking; the other officers' names were Anthony Mordaga and Michael Ditolla) approached me.

Mazur: "What's your name and where are you going?"

Me: "My name is Alonza Robertson and I'm trying to catch the bus to Chestnut Ridge N.Y."

Mazur: "What's going on here?"

Me: "I was trying to find out if this bus is the one I need to take to Hackensack or Oradell, that will allow me to catch another bus that goes to Westwood or the one that takes the Pasack Valley train route. All the trains are not running on the weekends because of track work. I'm not familar with these buses, or bus lines, and I just wanted to ask this driver a question about which direction she's going."

Mazur: "She's nervous and doesn't want you on the bus."

Me: " You got to be kidding me? Sir...I wasn't even sure if she was the right bus for me to catch. I knocked on her window to ask her but she didn't open the door and just waved me off. I knocked again and she just got up out of her seat, walked to the back of the bus and ignored me."

Mazur: "She doesn't understand why you are taking pictures?"

Me: "Sir, I told her through the door that I was going to file a complaint with N.J. Transit because of how rude she was to me and I'd told her I just wanted to ask a quick question. I took two pictures, one of the front of the bus to get the bus number and license plate number and the other one of her standing in the middle of the bus ignoring me after I knocked on the closed doors."

He walked away, went back over to the driver and then came back again about two minutes later with a bus schedule in his hand.

Mazur: "You can't get on this bus, You can get on the next bus. We don't want to make a record of you."

Me: "Why would you make a record of me?" I haven't done anything wrong."

Mazur: "She's nervous of you."

Me: "She's on the bus, with the doors locked. Why didn't she just drive off then instead of calling the police?"

Mazur: "You can't get on the bus."

Me: "With all that's going on in the national news now, she's nervous of me, why? She won't even acknowledge me. When I had walked away for a few minutes to find a bathroom, she let everybody else she let on the bus before I walked back over her. And she still wouldn't open the door. What would any reasonable person deduce from that? You and I both know the real reason she's nervous and she called the police. It's because I'm black and I was going to complain about her.

Mazur: "It's not that, it's not that."

Me: "Then what other reasonable reason could it be?"

None of the officers said anything. One just looked down at the ground. Mazur handed me the schedule.

Mazur: "You can't get on the bus."

And then they turned around, got in their cars and drove off. The bus, and all the other passengers, pulled off. And I was left sitting there, in the 85-degree heat, feeling painfully disenfranchised.

It is my contention that the driver let the other people on and then stayed at the bus stop and called the police because she wanted to cover herself, and try to get me (a scary black man?) in trouble or at least humiliate me by placing her 911 call.

The police did investigate and concluded I had done nothing wrong – I was not warned, cited nor arrested (Paramus Police Department Incident #1-2013-029908). BUT, I still wasn’t going to be allowed on the bus. They were enforcing her subjectivity too. I asked them why and they said because I make her “nervous.”

If I had been anyone else of any other race, the police would have let me board the bus after they determined the 911 dispute was really about a driver looking to retaliate against me because I intended to file a complaint. They didn’t allow me to ride, even in the back of the bus.

The end story is the bus drove away, I was made a spectacle of and I had to wait another hour for another bus, then missed a connection to my house and ended up waiting in the rain for another hour in Hackensack and just gave up and spent $45 for a cab home to Chestnut Ridge, N.Y.

I visited the NJ Transit website and their slogan says there mission is to provide safe, reliable and convenient service. I didn’t get any of that on July 28.  They also say that “NJ TRANSIT is committed to ensuring that no person isexcluded from participation in or denied the benefits of its services on the basis of race, color or national origin, as provided by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964."

I was denied that public accommodation.

Others were allowed on the bus, but I was denied because I told her that I was planned to file a complaint. Thus her act - of refusing to answer my question, intentionally denying me entry on the bus and calling the police and making a false claim against me - was in retaliation. That is against the law too.