Judge rejects bond for man accused in shooting death of CATS bus driver
The man charged in the February shooting death of Charlotte Area Transit System bus driver Ethan Rivera will remain in custody for the foreseeable future, according to a news report.
WBTV reported Thursday that Dru Darian Thavychith, 21, will not receive bond. According to the station, Rivera’s mother and fiancee pleaded with the judge to not set a bond. Thavychith’s lawyer, however, argued that he is not a flight risk because he “called the police on himself in Kansas,” according to WBTV, before he was extradited to Charlotte.
Thavychith was arrested March 1 outside Kansas City, Missouri, after a two-week, four-state manhunt, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. He is charged with first-degree murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle. If convicted, he faces mandatory life in prison without parole.
Ethan Rivera, had worked as a bus driver for CATS for just over a year when he was shot on Feb. 11, in what Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police call a road-rage incident. He died a day later.
Mecklenburg County prosecutors will not be seeking the death penalty against Thavychith, they said previously.
Earlier this month CATS CEO John Lewis announced his resignation from his position as CEO effective Nov. 30. Lewis received heavy criticism over driver safety following Rivera’s death.
This story was originally published October 27, 2022 at 4:41 PM.
