Cops: Bus Driver Lied About Bible Stopping Bullets

Investigators say Ohio man staged gang attack
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 19, 2014 2:00 AM CDT
Cops: Bus Driver Lied About Bible Stopping Bullets
Wagoner claimed to have taken this gun from his attackers in February this year.   (AP Photo/Dayton Police via The Dayton Daily News)

Ohio bus driver Rickey Wagoner wasn't really saved by his Bible in a supposed Feb. 24 gang attack, police say—but he probably does need some kind of help. Investigators now believe the Dayton driver staged the attack by stabbing himself, shooting himself in the arm, and firing two bullets into his New Testament, reports the New York Daily News. After the incident, he told police he had been attacked by three black teenagers with their faces covered who used slang (shooting a "polar bear") for a black-on-white attack.

Investigators found that Wagoner's knife wounds appeared to be self-inflicted "hesitation" wounds instead of defensive ones, his DNA was the only DNA found at the scene, and ballistic tests revealed that bullets would have easily passed through his religious text if it had been in his chest pocket, as he claimed, but not if it had been placed on asphalt, the Dayton Daily News reports. Police say that on a 911 call, Wagoner, who weighs 320 pounds, did not sound winded even though he claimed to have fought off his attackers and run 200 to 300 feet. The driver hasn't been charged with a crime, but he will probably lose his job: The director of the transit authority says customers and employees are "appalled and angry" at "the thought that an employee would allegedly mislead the police, the public, and us and use ugly racial stereotypes in doing so." (More strange stuff stories.)

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