Seattle Bus Drivers Mourn

Police are still trying to make sense of Friday's apparent murder-suicide that caused a Seattle city bus to plunge off a bridge after a passenger shot the bus driver and then turned the gun on himself.

Mark McLaughlin, the 44-year-old driver, was at the wheel when his 60-foot bus careened across Aurora Bridge, plowed through a guardrail, and fell 50 feet onto an apartment house.

The suspected gunman is Steven Coole, 43, who is also known to acquaintances as Silas Cool, though police have not said which name is correct.

Photos of both McLaughlin and Coole were posted as part of a makeshift memorial at the Metro Transit bus base Sunday. Coole's was placed there in the hope that another driver might recognize him and help police in their investigation.

The crash left three people dead, including the driver and the gunman. Passenger Herman Liebelt, 69, died Saturday of his injuries.

All 32 others on the bus were injured. Sixteen remained hospitalized Sunday, with one man in critical condition.

Bronston Kenney, a Seattle bus driver, said the route that McLaughlin was driving was known to be a troublesome one, but the transit system had not taken steps to lend support to the drivers.

"We've always wanted to have more support in dealing with difficult people," said Kenney, "and, essentially, they give us less authority than a clerk in a convenience store."

Police said they did not know of a motive. Authorities have not confirmed that Coole shot McLaughlin. Ballistics tests were to be returned Monday.

Coole, as his name is listed in Seattle area court records, is believed to be from North Plainfield, N.J., 25 miles west of New York City.

On the day of the shooting, former classmates of Silas Cool at North Plainfield High School were holding their 25th reunion. They hadn't been able to locate the former student they remembered as nice but quiet.

"This weekend should have been a time of celebration, but it's real sad to hear that one of our own lost his life this way," said Dan Battista of North Plainfield, who remembered Cool from gym class.

To Seattle bus rider Chad Reilly, the hunched-over man talking to himself at a bus stop Friday afternoon had looked like someone to avoid.

"From what it sounds like, I might have seen the guy," he said Sunday. "But I can't swear to it.

"He was talking to himself, obviously kind of out of it," Reilly said. "I've seen some weird stuff on buses, some disturbed and generally disturbing people."

Reilly, who had been nursing a cup of coffee, said the man locked eyes with him and commented on their drinks. He was drinking a beer.

"It's not caffeine," Reilly said the man told him. "It's carbonated."

Reilly decided to move on to another bus stop.

"Buses in general I don't have a problem with," he said. "It's people with guns that shouldn't have thethat I have a problem with."