Suspect arrested in shooting death of Charlotte bus driver Ethan Rivera, police say
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Shooting of a Charlotte bus driver
Ethan Rivera, a 41-year-old bus driver for Charlotte Area Transit System, died Feb. 12, 2022, a day after being shot aboard his CATS bus. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police say a road rage incident led to the shooting.
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After what police described as a two-week manhunt, the suspect in last month’s fatal shooting of CATS bus driver Ethan Rivera is in custody, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police said Tuesday.
Darian Dru Thavychith, 21, was arrested at a gas station in Shawnee, Kansas, late Monday, according to police in the Kansas City suburb.
Officers “were summoned” to the gas station about 11 p.m., Shawnee Police said in an email to the Kansas City Star. Police didn’t say who requested their presence at the station or how they knew Thavychith was there.
WSOC first reported the arrest.
Thavychith will be charged with murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle, CMPD Capt. Joel McNelly said during a virtual news conference Tuesday.
“We pray that this apprehension brings some solace and some peace to the Rivera family,” he said.
Rivera’s mother, Sylvia, who made an emotional plea for the public’s help in identifying her son’s killer last month, said she learned of the arrest from a phone call Tuesday morning.
“Right now, I feel relieved that he’s off the streets,” she told the Observer from her home in New York.
Next steps in the Rivera case
Thavychith is in the Johnson County, Kansas, jail, according to Shawnee police records.
At a court hearing Tuesday afternoon, Thavychith agreed to be extradited to Charlotte. He made no comments in the courtroom other than to reply “yes” to the judge.
The manhunt for Thavychith led through several states, including Tennessee, Colorado and finally Kansas, according to McNelly. He was arrested without incident, the captain said.
McNelly declined to specify the electronic tools CMPD used to track Thavychith.
“We don’t want the bad guys to know how we’re coming for them, but clearly we are coming for them,” he said.
McNelly thanked various agencies for their assistance, including the Secret Service, FBI and U.S. Attorney’s offices in Charlotte; the State Bureau of Investigation; the FBI in Kansas City and Nashville; Nashville airport police; and police in Castle Rock, Colorado, and Shawnee.
John Lewis, CEO of the Charlotte Area Transit System, called news of the arrest “a bright ray of sunshine” after a “cloudy and dark couple of weeks.”
Ethan Rivera shooting
Rivera, 41, was shot just after 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 11 in a road-rage incident in the 500 block of West Trade Street near Graham Street in uptown, police said.
CMPD on Feb. 15 released photographs captured by cameras on Rivera’s bus that show the suspect in a 2003-2005 black Honda Pilot. A warrant for Thavychith was issued on Feb. 18.
Citing the ongoing investigation, police on Tuesday refused to say if the fatal shot had penetrated any type of protective shield before hitting Rivera.
Police also declined to provide more details about what led to the shooting.
Safety concerns for CATS workers
Lewis on Tuesday said CATS is working “very closely” with CMPD, the bus drivers’ union and Allied Universal, which provides CATS’ security force, to identify “the best ways that we can have a targeted and effective response to these kinds of issues.”
CATS also has worked with CMPD to increase the presence of police at the uptown transit center and other transit sites, he said.
Since 2017, 57 cases of violence against CATS operators have been reported, including Rivera’s shooting, Lewis said in a statement last Friday. Fifteen cases were reported in 2017, and 14 more in 2021.
The Southern Workers Assembly, a network of unions and other worker groups, has called for bullet-resistant partitions and security on evening transit routes, among other demands.
Barriers have been installed to give bus operators “a sense of security,” Lewis said on Feb. 14, but they’re not bulletproof. CATS staff are also provided with training in deescalation tactics, he said.
“Unfortunately, violence in regards to our bus operators is not a new issue,” Lewis said. “It’s not a new issue for CATS, and it’s not a new issue for public transit.”
Robert A. Crunkleton of the Kansas City Star contributed to this story.
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 9:57 AM.
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