A Brooklyn man claims he was choked by a bus driver in an incident that was caught on video — but he ended up being the one handcuffed and facing a career hit from the publicity.
According to two complaints filed against the city, Malachi Houston, 27, claims he was falsely accused of attempted murder after getting into an altercation with driver Isaac Egareba, 60, while riding a B99 bus in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood on June 8.
Mr Houston claims he lost his job as a delivery driver after a police investigation was launched into his alleged stabbing of Mr Egareba in the neck and CCTV images were published in the news, and he has not been able to secure new work since.
“Right now my life is at a standstill,” Houston told The Washington Post in an exclusive interview. “I want to clear my name. I want the truth to come out.”
Houston filed two complaints last month against the city, the MTA and the NYPD, seeking $30 million in damages for the assault, false arrest and prosecution, and defamation.
A minute of surveillance footage obtained by The Washington Post shows Houston leaning slightly toward the driver's seat of the bus before a transit agency employee bursts into the main cabin from behind the driver's door.
The video shows the door slamming into Houston, the driver grabbing him around the neck with one hand and pinning him against a railing inside the bus, and the two struggling.
The same day, police and Egareba's union released statements alleging the transport worker had been stabbed during an altercation.
TWU Local 100 stated in a press release Egareba, who had worked as a bus driver for 17 years, was “violently attacked,” he said, adding: “I was carrying out my assigned duties when an unknown assailant suddenly slashed me on the left side of my face.”
Houston, who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, said subway service was down, forcing her to take the bus after returning home from her son's kindergarten graduation.
But passengers on the No. 3 shuttle bus were “infuriated” by the “unexplained detour route,” according to a Houston complaint letter.
“I noticed the driver had skipped my stop,” Houston said of the driver, “and I noticed other people were approaching the driver and there was some kind of commotion on the bus because the driver was skipping stops.”
When Houston first asked the bus driver to let her off, the driver yelled at her to “get out of my sight,” she claims.
According to Houston, Eghareva then “started screaming” at other passengers, to which he asked again: “Why don't you stop the bus? Are you trying to take us hostage?”
“He started yelling at us and calling us names,” Houston alleged. “I got angry and started yelling back at him. We got into an argument.”
When the bus then came to a halt, “I tapped on the front of the bus to let me off… and he jumped out,” Houston alleged.
Houston said Egareba reached into the driver's area and threw a piece of paper just before launching his attack, but that he never attempted to hit the driver.
“He came out of the booth and punched me. [the booth door] “Then he started attacking me,” Houston said. “He started choking me and then he pushed me against the banister again.”
“I had a bottle in my hand and the bottle broke as he lunged at me,” Houston said, explaining that a bottle that broke during the scuffle may have caused the cut on Egareva.
Houston claims Egareba “choked me for about a minute” before letting go, after which he ran to the back of the bus, pried open the door and escaped.
“At that point I panicked and thought my life was in danger,” Houston said.
Houston explained that police eventually issued a warrant for his arrest, and he turned himself in on July 8, and had to spend five days on Rikers Island before a grand jury dismissed the indictment.
If the grand jury does not indict Houston by the next hearing in October, prosecutors will be forced to drop the case entirely, a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney's office confirmed.
“The bus driver attacked me and nearly choked me,” Houston said, “and then they framed me and made it look like I tried to kill him.”
Houston said since the incident she has chosen to take taxis and Ubers because she's “afraid to get on the bus.”
Houston faces two criminal charges in Brooklyn, one for being found in possession of a fraudulent credit card on March 18 and another for reckless driving on May 15. Houston denies the charges in those cases.
His lawyer, Mark Cillian, said he believed the video fully vindicated his client, who was simply defending himself from an assault.
Egareba was “infuriated [and] “He got himself involved in the violence,” Cillian said. “He got hurt and now he's blaming the passengers.”
Egareba denied the allegations.
“He's the one who attacked me,” the bus driver claimed in the brief call. “I was at work and someone attacked me.”
“The incident is currently under investigation,” the MTA said, confirming that Egareba still works as a bus driver for the transit agency.
Both the city Law Department and the New York Police Department declined to comment.
